Silver lining in the red cloud
Take a look at the map that highlights the Red Corridor in the opening page of this feature, and you will see a huge blotch of red over Andhra Pradesh. At least that's how the situation was until a couple of years ago (the map is based on the spread of the Naxal network as of 2006-07). Well, Andhra is still very much a part of the Naxal corridor, but the situation seems to have improved over the past few years.
A senior Andhra police officer recently told BT that 2009 was the only year in the last 30 years when not even a single policeman was killed by the Maoists in the state. Talk to those in the government and the industry and it is apparent that it is a mix of several factors that has led to what is now being seen as Andhra's better record in tackling Maoist insurgency.
At one end there is a comprehensive rehabilitation package that has been devised by the state to help those Maoists who have laid down their arms to rebuild their lives. At the other is a sharp focus on compensation and rewards to officers. For instance, officers of the Greyhounds, an elite force founded in 1989, get 60 per cent more than the normal pay, and the welfare of their families is taken care of by the state.
Greyhounds is a one-of-its-kind unit in the country and, according to Anjani Kumar, Inspector General, it "specialises in jungle warfare. If you have to fight a guerrilla one has to be like a guerrilla". It is, therefore, different from other elite forces like, say, the National Security Guard (NSG), which specialises in dealing with urban terrorism, anti-hijacking and VIP security, among other things.
All directly recruited officers in the state, from assistant subinspectors to IPS probationers, undergo training for three years at the Greyhounds training centres. That apart, a special force of young officers has been created in each district and the state has made substantial new investments in modernisation of weapons, communication, transport and support technologies for each police station.
