No air power in offensive against naxals: Home secretary

The Centre today ruled out use of air power in the fight against Naxalites and admitted obviously some element of failure in the operations led to the killing of 75 security personnel in Chhattisgarh today.

"I don't think we need to use air power at the moment (in the anti-naxal operation). We can manage with what we have.
Our strategy is unfolding and we should be able to manage
without air power," Home secretary Gopal K Pillai told
reporters here.

However, he made it clear that the air power will be used only for evacuation and for mobility of troops.

In a brief statement, the home secretary said that there were some element of failure in the operation.

"Preliminary reports indicate that the CPI(Maoists) had planted pressure bombs in surrounding areas where the security  forces might take cover. As a result of this bulk of the casualties have taken place," he said.

Pillai said all the 82 personnel who had participated in the operation have been accounted for and none has been captured by the Maoists. 

He called the Maoists "murderers" and said the government's resolve was strengthened and it would continue to tackle the Maoist menace as planned.

The home secretary said the CRPF personnel returning to
its base camp after two days of operations when the early
hours of this morning it came under fire from hill features
just about four kilometres from its base camp.

"As of now 74 CRPF personnel, including a deputy commandant and an Assistant Commandant and a head constable of state police force have died. Seven injured have been brought
to Jagdalpur," he said.

He said those who have gone from the base camp -- to rescue the attacked team, also came under fire. 

"One of the helicopter which has been dispatched to bring in the injured personnel also came under fire from the Maoists," he said.

Pillai said the resolve of the Central government to tackle the Maoist menace further strengthened with this incident.

"All I can say at this moment is that our resolve is firm and in the coming days and months, we will give a much firmer and fitting resolve to the murderers," he said. 

The home secretary said a high-level team of officials including DG (CRPF), DGP (Chattisgarh), home secretary (Chattisgarh), Joint Secretary (Naxal Management) from Union home ministry have already reached the site of the incident.

"An AN-32 aircraft has been sent to bring the bodies back to Delhi," Pillai said. 

Calling the incident "regrettable", he expressed sympathies for the personnel who lost their lives in the ambush.

"The home ministry, in one of its first advertisement, had indicated that Maoists are nothing but murderers. The incident today
reinforces this as also the other hundreds of people, innocent
civilians and tribals that they have killed in past few months
and years," Pillai said.

The home secretary said recently there were some successes against naxals as a number of its polit bureau members, central committee members, zonal committee members have been arrested.

"In the coming days, more of these will come under arrest and taken into custody. We will clearly like to state that Maoist ideology is a dead-end ideology," he said.

Pillai said the ideology, other than killing innocent people as well as destruction of public property like schools, panchayat buildings, bridges, roads, has really nothing to offer to the people whom Maoists claim to represent.

"So far as the MHA is concerned our resolve is strengthened and we shall continue to tackle Maoist menace as we had already planned to do," the home secretary said. 

Pillai said the area where the attack took place was not one of those places where the Home Ministry conducted operations to reclaim it from the control of Maoists, as it was done in Rajnandgaon and Kanker districts in Chhattisgarh.

"Those operations continue to be successful and we have been able to remove the influence of Maoists in those area. This is an area where search operation has been conducted based on certain specific intelligence inputs," he explained.

The home secretary said he cannot say anything on how the incident took place until he receives a detailed report from the officials on the field, which is likely to come by tomorrow.

"I cannot tell you what had happened. This kind of incident should not have happened. We should not have lost so many lives... it has not made any difference to our programme to restore civil administration and remove whatever little influence Maoists have made ," he said.