Be it the Bhima Koregaon incident or the protests in the aftermath of Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, there is always a Left and Naxal angle to it.

The security agencies have said on several occasions that Left-Wing terrorism is the most lethal threat that India faces. It is deep-rooted and it emanates from within the system, thus making it extremely dangerous.

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A plot to kill PM Modi:

The draft charges filed by the Pune Police in connection with the Elgar Parishad case is only a reminder of how dangerous the Naxalites and their urban buddies are. There are 19 accused in this case, who include, Sudhir Dhawale, Rona Wilson, Vernon Gonsalves, Mahesh Raut, Sudha Bharadwaj, P Varavara Rao, Surendra Gadling, Arun Ferriera, Shoma Sen, Sagar Gorkhe, Ramesh Gaichor, Deepak Dhengle, Jyoti Jagtap and Harshali Potdar, Milind Teltumbde, Prakash Manglu and Deepu, Kishan.

The police say that Rs 8 crore had been arranged to purchase the sophisticated weapon M4 along with 4 lakh rounds. Arms and ammunition were to be supplied through a designated person from Nepal and Manipur. The idea was to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The police said that the plot was to target the PM during one of his road shows.

The police say that these accused wanted to wage a war against India and hence the conspiracy was hatched. As part of this major conspiracy to destabilise India, it was the CPI (Maoists) who were taking care of the funding. The Elgar Parishad event held in the city on December 31, 2017 was specifically aimed at causing a huge unrest with an intention of overthrowing a democratically elected government both at the Centre and the state of Maharashtra, the police also said.

The draft charges have been filed under the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and Indian Penal Code. There are 16 charges in all in the draft and the court will hear the matter in January.

Exploiting sentiments:

Like what we have witnessed in the CAB protests, even during the Elgar Parishad incident, the Naxals and their urban friends tried to incite violence, by provoking the people. While during the CAB protests, there is a deep-rooted conspiracy to provoke the sentiments of the students, during Elgar Parishad it was the Dalits.

The accused through a frontal organisation called the Kabir Kala Manch had tried to exploit communal sentiments. They enacted provocative songs, dances, short plays, apart from distributing books and Naxal literature to exploit the sentiments of the Dalits. The intent was to create chaos in various places across Maharashtra, with an intention that the violence spreads.

The investigations being conducted in the CAB protests also finds a similar pattern. This time the plot was to instigate students. The targets were the minority institutions such as the Jamia Millia and Aligarh Muslim University. The pattern in choosing the institutions to trigger off the protests is a clear indicator that these elements in the Opposition and Naxal sympathisers were looking to incite the Muslims against the CAB Bill. In this context, it is pertinent to make it clear once again that the CAB does not affect the Indian Muslims or any other religion in anyway.

In the FIR prepared by the Delhi Police probing the violence at Jamia, Chandan Kumar, a member of the All India Students Association, part of the Left Wing has been named as one of the accused. Kasim Usmani, a member of the CYSS, which is the student’s wing of the AAP, Asif Tanha, a member of the Students Islamic Organisation and Asif Khan, a former Congress legislator are some of them to be named.

Security experts that MyNation spoke with say that both the CAB and the Elgar incidents are textbook Left-Wing Extremism. In both cases, there has been a sustained pattern to incite a particular community and ensure that the violence spreads across the country. The Naxalites and their urban sympathisers have a single point agenda and that is the destruction of the country. They will go to any lengths and will indulge in disturbing the social fabric or even resort to killing, the experts also point out.

The anti-Hindu narrative:

Several probes and dossiers that have been prepared over the years by the Intelligence agencies clearly suggest that the urban movement of the Naxalites has been all about bringing the Dalits and Muslims together. The document, CPI (Maoist) an Urban Perspective says that there is a need to bring together the Muslims, Christians and other indigenous people to find the Hindus.

Since a large proportion of the minorities are urbanised and since the attacks of the Hindus are as yet mostly concentrated in the cities, there is a need to build an urban organisation, the document also states. There is a need to build an urban force of all secular forces and persecuted religious minorities such Muslims, Christians and Sikhs against the Hindu fascist forces, the document states.

The extreme left narrative also speaks about forming an issue based joint front organisation. As the Hindus push ahead with their agenda, it is extremely important to build an urban force. There is a need to oppose legislations and fight saffronisation, the document further notes.

The larger idea is to target the Hindus and build a force against the Hindus. This needs to be done on the basis of propaganda and agitation. For this there is a need to distribute booklets and other propaganda material and the prime agenda should be to unite the minorities and isolate the Hindus, the urban plan of the Naxalites also states.

In this context if one looks at the current on-goings and also what happened during the Elgar Parishad, it becomes clear that the larger agenda of setting up of a urban force is what these persons are planning.

The biggest security threat:

All assessments conducted by the security agency clearly suggest that the Naxals and the propaganda that they drive in the urban areas is the greatest security threat that India faces. While their war in the jungles has always been a concern, the bigger threat is that they constantly look to disturb the social fabric.

They use caste, religion, language and ethnicity to divide the country. To propagate their ideology, they use NGOs, lawyers, journalists and human rights activists. Further provocative articles, videos and social media posts are circulated with an intention of building a false narrative.

While they have always been around and have carried out their propaganda, the question is why have they gone on overdrive mode since the BJP came to power in 2014? One of the primary reasons is that the BJP government has been merciless in its war against the Naxalites. The agenda of this government was not only to use the security forces against them. Apart from developmental works in villages, a lucrative surrender package apart from educating the villagers was also laid out. The recent surrenders by Naxalites only suggests that the ideology is fake and the Naxal movement has only become a money-spinning racket. This becomes clear based on the confession of all those who have surrendered in recent times.

In the case of the urban Naxals, the security threat is higher. They have information on the activities of the government through their sources that they have built up over the years. For several years, they have used these sources to get information about what the government is up to and this has led to the sabotaging of the anti-Naxalite movement.

The other problem that the urban Naxalites have faced over the past few years is with regard to the funding. The drive against the illegal NGOs receiving foreign funds with the required clearance was one of the major hits that the Modi government has delivered on the Naxalite movement. The funding squeeze has irked them further, as a result of which they are on overdrive mode.

The funding squeeze has also ensured that the Naxal spread has come down drastically. A welcome development that took place in 2018 was with regard to the shrinking of the Naxal dominated areas. The government said that 44 districts in various parts of the country were no longer Naxal affected. Thanks to this development these districts were removed from the affected list.