The CPI(Maoist) has observed a successful bandh, a prohibited form of militant strike, against the comprador Indian state on may 19th. Two forest wood depots were set on fire in the early hours of Sunday in north Gadchiroli at at Chhipri village and at Dadapur village, where three weeks earlier a successful attack had taken place.
They also caused a shutdown of markets and a disruption of services of Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporative buses. The bourgeois media called the attack a „rampage“.
The bandh was observed to protest against the brutal, antidemocratic war against the people, waged against the peoples war. In the last two years, the Indian state reaction took the life of 71 comrades through encounters, concerning the numbers published by the government. Especially the practice of ‘fake encounter killings’ – an orchestrated battle that is actually a masked execution – should be abolished with no delay, as one of the demands of the bandh.
The bandh also is used by the Maoists a method to reach out and consolidate the unity with the masses against exploitation and state oppression in the new area of Gadchiroli, Maharashtra.The bandh was observed on the last day of the Indian elections as a part of the recent campaign for active electoral boycott.
They were commemorating especially two incidents of fake encounter killings that happened lately in the region:
The killings of two leading female comrades on April 27th , Comrade Ramko, alias Kamla Narote, divisional committee member (DVCM), and Comrade Shilpa Durva, Bhamragarh dalam member. And the killings in Kasnasur, where 40 cadres were martyred during a protest against mining on the expense of Indian tribal, the adivasi, and their jal, jungle and jameen (water, forest, land). With the attacks they sent a message that the forests belongs to the adivasi, and if foresters of big finance capital won‘t stop its destruction they will be dealt with accordingly.
The police in their fear, suspecting the maoists to plant pressure bombs and booby traps near the banners, that were put up in great numbers to announce the bandh, forced the villagers to take off the banners and burn them to show “their defiance against the maoists”. Using the villagers as "human shields" against suspected traps (even though such traps didn’t exist) lets one guess how much the villagers are acting out of free will.
With their militant action the CPI(Maoist) showed the masses of Gadchiroli and the world that the brutal and criminal war the imperialist’s puppets are waging against them will miss its aim to destroy them. They will overcome the fascist terror, and ultimately free the Indian peoples from the yoke of imperialism, uniting the struggling masses in the people's war.
Long live the CPI(Maoist)!
Long live the people’s war!