Recovery of school uniforms in a Naxal camp during recent raids by security personnel in a jungle in Chhattisgarh’s Rajnandgaon district bordering Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra has baffled the forces, the police said on Sunday.
At least two dozens school uniforms were among the numerous items seized from a Maoist hideout in the dense forests of Katulbharora when three search parties raided the rebel camp set up on a hill in the area from both Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra sides simultaneously on Friday.
A military dalam (armed unit) of outlawed CPI (Maoist) was camping there to plan and execute a big scale attack on security forces in Rajnandgaon district.
“The raiding parties had seized huge cache of arms and ammunitions and other Naxal materials from the rebel camp as usually. But, what surprised us was the recovery of a large number of school uniforms,” Durg range inspector general of police (IGP) R.K. Vij said.
The police suspects that the Naxals may have adopted a new strategy to divert attention of security forces during the encounters by donning school uniforms. It has also not been ruled that the Maoists may be forcing the children to desert their schools to attend the Naxal camps.
“We have put our intelligence network in the entire insurgency-hit region of Bastar on alert to solve the puzzle by cracking the new strategy by Naxals,” a senior police officer told this newspaper here on Sunday requesting anonymity.
The seizure has also unravelled another new strategy by the Maoists to misguide the security forces during the conflicts.
“We have recovered huge quantities of crackers at the encounter site. It appears the ultras have adopted a new tactic to hold back the forces while fleeing the battlefield by bursting crackers,” the police officer said.