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In his book “The Life of Reason”, George Santayana, the Spanish American philosopher observed, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. This statement, made in the larger historical context, has equal applicability to conflict situations. If operational lessons are not correctly learned, casualties will continue to occur with monotonous regularity. The Maoist ambush of police personnel in Chhattisgarh on 11 March 2014is yet another chilling reminder of the truism of Santayana’s words.
A 45 man strong police party left their post at Tongpal on the morning of the 11thto sanitise the area. Moving north along the road, the Maoists ambushed the group about three kilometres from their start point, killing 16 people, 11 of whom were from the CRPF, four from the local police and one civilian. The Maoists used improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and small arms to cause casualties, and post the encounter, made away with 18 rifles, a few under barrel grenade launchers and a large number of magazines from the ambushed police party. It is evident that no lessons were learnt from the earlier ambushat Km 43 carried out by the Maoists on 25 May 2013 in which 31 people were killed, including a major part of the state level leadership of the Congress party.The recent ambush of 11thMarch was about 15 km form the Km 43 ambush site and was in open terrain. The area comes under the responsibility of the CRPF at Tongpal, which invites the question as to why no lessons were learntfrom past operations? Perhaps the answer lies in the way we record incidents, especially those where hostile forces have got the better of the security forces. The right questions are invariably never asked, unpleasant facts are covered up and accountability rarely established. In deference to those who have laid down their lives, statements are given to the media on the brave resistance put up by the security forces.So history repeats itself, not because it has been forgotten, but because we failed to record it correctly in the first place, leading to continuous loss of life and a further cycle of cover-ups and misreporting.
A question to be asked is, ‘was the area under the domination of the security forces’? The answer unfortunately is in the negative. While the police forces do dominate the area by day, the area is left to the Maoists by night. Domination requires patrolling by night also and setting up ambushes where movement of Maoists is likely.Such ambush sites are chosen randomly, to avoid the pitfall of falling into a fixed and predictable routine. Only then can caution be imposed on the Maoists. In the present ambush, the Maoists came by night in large numbers and set up IEDs on the road. Evidently, they had a free run to do so! So the questions to be asked with respect to area domination are; does the CRPF carry out night patrolling? Are they trained to do so? Do they have the requisite night vision equipment? Do they set up ambushes at random to prevent the move of armed militant groups? Unless we ask these questions, how can we even hope to improve the quality of our response?
The next question is, were the police forces moving tactically? While moving out for operations, there is a laid down standard operating procedure where troops move well spaced on either side of the road. It is important to remember that the leading elements carry out such movement cross-country, about 25 to 50 meters off the road and not on the road itself, with the rest of the column following tactically in file formation. Movement in such a manner increases the chances of detecting an ambush and obviates the possibility of the whole group being hit simultaneously. Should the leading elements come under fire, the rest of the group is in a position to react and break the ambush, in turn causing severe casualties to the militants.
The Maoists took away 18 weapons from the conflict site. This indicates a lack of resistance by the rest of the group, which enabled the Maoists to collect the weapons and magazines from the bodies of the killed and injured policemen. Resistance would have prevented such an occurrence. The question to be asked is what did the rest of the group do when the leading lot came under fire? It would be important to get an answer, if corrective measures are to be applied in terms of training in battlefield skills and junior level leadership training.
The last question pertains to leadership. Where were the leaders located? Where were the company commander, the battalion commander, and the DIG and IG level ranked officers? What was the briefing given to the troops? Were they trained in anti-ambush drills? How much ammunition was being carried by each man? What was the communication within the group? It is important to ask these questions and hold commanders at all levels accountable for acts of omission or commission if the war on terror is to be won.
The discourse unfortunately has shifted to peripheral issues. The media consistently refers to lack of intelligence, but this does not apply to security forces moving out on operations. They have to be prepared for an ambush each and everytime they move out. Another point emphasised by the media is the large number of Maoists who took part in the attack. Some figures suggest that the Maoist strength was in the region of two to three hundred people. This does not stand up to analysis. The terrain was open, the ambush was laid near the road and such large numbers would easily have been spotted. In any case, what is the intelligence set up of the unit if such large numbers of people can lie undetected within three kilometres of the post? As the police personnel taking part in the operation could only have provided information regarding the strength of the Maoists, it begs another question. If indeed such large numbers were there, they would afford an equally big target. Why could the police not shoot down even one militant at close range?
There are basic weaknesses in the training and leadership levels of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) taking part in anti Naxal operations. These need to be addressed on priority if we are to win the war against terror. For a start, CRPF units must start operating as an organised body under their own commanding officers. They must also be trained in unit or company groups. Officers of the rank of DIG and IG must leave the towns and live with their personnel who are taking part in operations to provide frontline leadership. We must train our police forces taking part in such operations to make them adept at jungle fighting. The road ahead is arduous but it is one that must be traversed. Failure to do so will only embolden the Maoists and perpetuate conflict in the affected areas.
Maj Gen Dhruv C Katoch (Retd) is Director, CLAWS. Views expressed are personal.
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