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-The Times of India
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The CPI (Maoist) has formed its own elite training 'institute' in the Dandakaranya forests, a Naxalite bastion, to transform tribal cadres into Communist professionals equipped to handle tasks related to the Central Committee, the outfit's apex decision-making body.
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The Buniyadi Communist Training School (BCTS), a brainchild of CPI (Maoist) top gun Ganapathy, has been churning out professionally-trained Communists since 2009 with basic military skills and knowledge of Hindi, social studies, mathematics and science.
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Each tribal cadre undergoing the six-month course at BCTS, which operates in Dandakaranya only, with the actual venue changing with every batch, is taught military intelligence and action team subjects, a surrendered courier for the CPI (Maoist) central committee recently told the Chhattisgarh police.
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Dandakaranya special zonal committee (DKSZC) member K Ramachandra Reddy alias Raju is in charge of the school and key Maoist leaders like Takalapalli Vasudeva Rao alias Ashanna are training Maoist cadres between 14 to 21 years in military intelligence and action team missions such as assassination of legislators and senior police officers.
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The BCTS which trains 30 to 35 students in each batch, has trained four batches so far. The fifth batch is reportedly undergoing training in Dharba area. The cadres trained in the school are assigned important duties, mostly in works related to the CPI (Maoist) central committee.
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The motive behind the decision to form BCTS - taken at a 2009 DKSZC meeting attended by CC members Ganapathy, Katakam Sudarshan alias Anand and Tippiri Tirupati alias Devuji - was to overcome the acute leadership problem being faced by the CPI (Maoist). The surrendered central committee courier, who is barely 19 and hails from a poor Gond family in Maad area of Chhattisgarh, has revealed that the Takalapally Vasudev Rao alias Ashanna heads both the Dandakaranya action team as well as military intelligence (MI).
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The action teams have been actively plotting to go after high-profile targets, according to the surrendered Naxalite who was barely 12 when inducted into the dalam. He told the police that the DK action team had last year attempted to kill a senior police official and even tried to attack a DGP-rank officer traveling in a train from Raipur to Howrah. The Maoist courier said actions teams conduct reconnoitres ahead of important raids and ambushes. The DK action team, he revealed, had looted 17 tonnes of explosives from Bhanupuri and 17,000 explosive devices from Narayanpur in 2009, as well as 16 tonnes of explosives from Gadchiroli in 2010. Ashanna is currently planning to reconstitute the action team and has identified cadres from different companies for the same.
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The surrendered courier put the strength of armed cadres in Dandakaranya at about 3,000 and that of the militia at 5,000 cadres. The Dandakaranya committee has a technical wing with a manufacturing unit near Gobel in Kucoanar area. This unit makes 12 bore guns, .315 guns, rocket launcher shells, grenade launcher shells and refills of 12 bore and .315 cartridges. It also manufactures barmars, pipe bombs, claymore mines and pressure bombs.
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