The analyses, as of September 2013, suggested that the estimated number of PLGA members has decreased from 10,000 – 12,000 to 8,000 – 9,000. But, Gautam Navlakha has suggested that the PLGA has strengthened over the past few years, and has mustered 12 companies and over 25 platoons and a supply platoon in 2013 as compared to 8 companies and 13 platoons of 2008.
This is why almost every year – 2012, 2013 and 2014, the Communist Party of India (Maoists) have figured in the top 5 terror groups globally. This is what the State Department’s statement says about the Indian Maoists: Compared to the other countries that experienced the most terrorist attacks and fatalities in 2014, the diversity of perpetrator groups was much greater in India, with 45 groups active in 2014.
However, nearly 60% of the terrorist attacks carried out in India in 2014 were attributed to the Communist Party of India-Maoist or Maoist perpetrators not specifically identified as belonging to a particular organization. Essentially, we are looking at a Terror Group which is more lethal than al-Shabaab and Tehrik-e-Taliban and about as lethal as the al-Qaeda.
They are mostly prevalent in the Red Corridor — a region in the east of India that experiences considerable Naxalite-Maoist insurgency. The Naxalite group mainly consists of the armed cadres of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). These are also areas that suffer from the greatest illiteracy, poverty and overpopulation in modern India, and span parts of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal states.
For such an organization to flourish so close to our state and so effectively we must look into their affairs and see whether they are engaged in any cross borders activities which can harm us. They raise their funding through mostly illegal means such as cultivation of opium and it is not far off to suggest that they can very easily engage in human trafficking and smuggling of arms across the borders to Bangladesh -arms which can be used by terrorist outfits here for any purpose. Similarly Bangladesh can be an easy transit route for shipping opium, and indeed can be a market for the drugs which are cultivated by the Maoists.
Such a severe and credible threat with international connections to various left wing extremists must be taken very seriously. They profess to have sympathy with Islamist terrorist organizations as they think that they are anti-Western and pro-people. So it should not be too difficult for them to establish cross border relations with our various fringe terrorist groups and supply them with arms and training.
Our government is too busy to find JMB terrorists in Bangladesh. India is also showing eagerness to tell our government how to fight terrorism. Although we have been insisting that these groups are local violent elements committing crimes and not terrorist. But our government is not concerned that next to our country in India Maoist Communist Party is the world’s fifth largest terrorism outfit. Their aim is to overthrow the government of India. How can we be so sure that Indian terrorists are not active in Bangladesh to take advantage of the chaotic politics and weak bureaucratic leadership?
