175 Maoists participated in Nayagarh Mayhem: Maoists’ Bulletin

Berhampur (Orissa): CPI (Maoists) Central Committee, in its Maoists' Information Bulletin' (MIB) has made public about the Nayagarh Mayhem which had rocked entire state in the in 2nd week of February this year The MIB, which is in possession of the State Intelligence officials, claims that weapons procured during the raid on Nayagarh could be around 500, as many as 175 Maoists had participated in the raids and that each of them carried away two or three weapons each। Neither the Orissa Government nor the MHA had disclosed the exact number of weapons looted during the raid but few affiliated bodies of CPI (Maoists) having base in Orissa had claimed the Operation Nayagarh was a grand success for them. The Chief of Central Military Commission of the CPI (Maoists) Basavaraj, who is quoted in the bulletin, disclosed that the Maoist raid teams had hoped to seize some 400-500 weapons, but they found many more. "We had ourselves burnt a large quantity of arms and ammunition as it was difficult for us to carry all of them. Since the place was far away from our stronghold areas, it was impossible to carry the entire load. So we burnt around 400 inferior arms, which the police claimed they recovered," a top Intelligence official quoting the MIB said here on Friday. The rebels made good with sophisticated weapons like AK-47s, Insas rifles, SLRs, LMGs and scores of short weapons. They left behind mostly the 303 bolt-action rifles, which were seized by the police later. Basavaraj also declined Orissa Government claims that more than 30 Maoists 20 were shot dead when police pursued the fleeing rebels in Gosama forest area bordering southern districts of Ganjam and Kandhamal. The CMC chief is quoted as saying that only two rebels, Rambathi and Iqbal from 7th and 9th companies of the PLGA were killed in the exchange of fire. Rebels also killed three policemen. The CMC chief said that they had christened the Nayagarh raid as Ropeway Operation, where the strategy was to descend on the enemy forces like commandoes descending from a ropeway to take them by surprise and swiftly complete the task. Basavaraj also claimed that 52 rebels took control of the Police Training School which had a presence of 400 policemen.