By P.V. Ramana, IANS
The arsenal of the Communist Party of India-Maoist, or Maoists as they are commonly known, consists of a mélange of weapons and explosives, many crude, but some sophisticated. Indeed, the rebels have moved a long way from fielding traditional farm implements such as spears, crowbars and sickles.
The arsenal is largely ingenious and indigenous. Occasionally, they ‘shop’ for arms. The first of these reports came to light in 1991.
Speaking in the Andhra Pradesh assembly Aug 20 that year, then home minister M.V. Mysoora Reddy said the guerrillas had acquired 60 AK series rifles and 20 sten guns from Sri Lanka’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). There were reports of purchases, subsequently, too.
Today, their arsenal consists of crude, homemade weapons as well as self-loading rifles (SLRs), light machine guns (LMGs), AK series and INSAS rifles looted from security forces.
Also, the Maoists have “designed and developed” crude rocket launchers and have acquired versatility in triggering explosive devices.
Explaining their ingenuity, a surrendered Maoist squad commander told this author at the Warangal Central Prison in Andhra Pradesh in January 2002 that they acquired by 2001 the capability to service an AK and fabricate an SLR.
K. Srinivas Reddy, an analyst of the Maoists, told this writer that at one of their production units, the rebels filled in metal to plug the holes rigged in the barrel of rifles used by National Cadet Corps (NCC) cadets.
At that time, the Maoists had looted 300 rifles from an NCC training camp in Guntur district. The rifles are reportedly functioning perfectly.
Traversing a long course, the guerrilla ingenuity took them to designing and developing rockets and rocket launchers. This came to light when the police in Mahabubnagar and Prakasam districts in Andhra Pradesh seized approximately 1,000 empty rocket shells and 42 launchers, in separate raids Sep 7 and 8, 2006.
These were fabricated at seven separate units in the Ambattur industrial estate, a suburb of Chennai. Investigations revealed an elaborate network stretching across Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Orissa.
The arrest and interrogation of the mastermind behind the manufacturing of rocket launchers in Ambattur and investigations brought to light several interesting and stunning facts.
By 2006, the rebels developed the ‘fourth’ version of these rocket launchers. The Maoists had done meticulous research while designing and fabricating the rockets and rocket launchers.
This was further proved when designs of cross-sections were recovered from a Maoist arms making-cum-research unit unearthed in Bhopal Jan 10, 2007.
Besides, speaking to this author in Bhopal two days later, an intelligence official said they had recovered over two dozen books on arms/weapons published by renowned international publishing houses.
In fact, the rebels launched their ‘rocket-making programme’ in 2002. It had two segments – the pilot “Rocket Launcher-I” and the subsequent “Rocket Launcher-II” project, which paved the way for getting these manufactured at industrial units.
The rocket development programme was undertaken under the guidance of a technical team the Maoists set up. It consisted of four top leaders — a member of the apex and all-powerful Central Committee, a member of the Andhra Pradesh State Committee, a member of the Andhra Pradesh State Military Commission, and a member of the Central Military Commission, which guides all military activities country-wide, including manufacturing and
acquisition of weapons, as well as actions by the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) — in short, the Maoist military machine.
The rocket launchers were developed and tested in the forests in Malkangiri district in Orissa in 2003. Speaking in Hyderabad, Peravaram Ramulu, the then director general of the Andhra Pradesh Police, said on May 26, 2003, that his men, in a joint operation with Orissa Police, recovered designs of a rocket launcher from a camp in the forest near Kalimela in Orissa.
Further tests on the rockets and rocket launchers were conducted at that time. A few hours earlier, the rebels made a failed attempt to hit a police station by employing a rocket launcher in far away Karimnagar district.
Subsequently, the improved versions of the rocket launchers were tested in 2004, in the Nallamala forests, on the eve of the peace process with the Andhra Pradesh government between June 2004 and January 2005. One of the top leaders who supervised the tests later sat at the negotiating table with the government from Oct 15 to 18 that year.
According to one account, at the initial stage of developing the rockets, the guerrillas spent Rs.950 per piece. Another account holds that for the entire Ambattur operation — to manufacture 1,600 empty rocket shells and 40 launchers — the Maoists allotted a sum of Rs.3.5 million.
By the Maoists’ own admission, these rocket launchers and rockets are, as yet, crude and merely have a “nuisance value”. But the rebels can hone up their manufacturing skills and improve the accuracy of their rocket launchers. Much as there are several scores of brilliant minds in India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the Maoists too have some.
(P.V. Ramana is Research Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. His book, “The Naxal Challenge – Causes, Linkages and Policy Options”, was released in November 2007. He can be contacted at [email protected])