Maoists give Pakistan a breather

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http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/...a-breather-750

Maoists give Pakistan a breather

By Jawed Naqvi
Friday, 07 May, 2010

NEW DELHI, May 6: As an Indian judge closed a sordid chapter in Delhi’s ties with Islamabad on Thursday by handing the death sentence to the sole surviving Pakistani gunman involved in the November 2008 carnage in Mumbai, the Indian government signalled that a more serious threat to the country’s internal security came from a Maoist rebellion raging in central and eastern India, not from across the border.

In an unusual advisory that seemed to presage the government’s shift in focus away from Pakistan, whose foreign minister is widely expected to resume talks with his Indian counterpart later this month, the Indian home ministry warned that it was the Maoists that planned to overthrow the Indian state in a bloody revolt, currently located in the central Indian forests.

In a day-long marathon centred on the death sentence by a Mumbai special court, TV channels speculated what its fallout would be on India’s relations with Pakistan.

However, in the post-Thimphu atmosphere of mild hope when the two prime ministers signalled a resumption of a new round of talks between their officials, there was little to analyse except to follow their lead. Pakistan’s progress with the prosecution of Mumbai terror masterminds named in the judgment will be watched by New Delhi. However, a subtle change of emphasis in the home ministry’s reminder on Thursday in which it described Maoists not as as “leftwing extremists” which it usually does, but as “terrorists” — a term almost completely reserved so far to describe Muslim militants and their sympathisers -- the government indicated its changed priority. In its crosshairs were liberal intellectuals, who received a dire warning.

“It has come to the notice of the government that some Maoist leaders have been directly contacting certain...intellectuals to propagate their ideology and persuade them to take steps as would provide support to the CPI (Maoist) ideology,” the home ministry said.

It warned that under the Unlawful Activities Act of 1967, “any person who commits the offence of supporting such a terrorist organisation with inter alia intention to further the activities of such terrorist organisations would be liable to be punished with imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years or with fine or with both. General public are informed to be extremely vigilant of the propaganda of CPI (Maoist) and not unwittingly become a victim of such propaganda.”

The Indian home ministry emphasised that the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and all its formations “are terrorist organisations whose sole aim is armed overthrow of the Indian state and that they have no place in India’s parliamentary democracy.”

It said CPI (Maoist) continued to kill innocent civilians including tribals in cold blood and destroy crucial infrastructure like roads, culverts, school buildings... to prevent development from reaching these under-developed areas. It is almost certain that the imminent talks with Pakistan will widen the discussion to a whole range of issues dogging bilateral ties, while the definition of terrorism expands to include matters closer to home.