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‘Red terror’ spots have begun to pop up in India’s capital and northern states’ forest and hilly areas.

It seems that the Maoists are interested in enlarging their area of influence outside the jungles of the ‘Red Corridor’ that runs from the Nepal border down to Andhra Pradesh.

Lately, they have begun targeting India’s seat of power - New Delhi - and many other cities by setting up urban bases with the aim to penetrate and influence policy makers, judiciary, media, civil liberty, human rights, cultural, Dalit, women and youth organisations.

Highly classified maps and reports of the Central intelligence agencies accessed by The Tribune depict that the Maoist/Naxalite-affected areas now include certain parts of the National Capital Region and adjoining states. At some places, they have been teaching how to fire guns and make bombs and land mines.

Seized documents of the CPI (Maoist) Politburo and Central Committee talk about the need to run a secret service, unleash psychological wars through effective networking of various friendly groups in the urban areas.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently described the Naxalite problem as ‘the single largest threat to India’.

According to a confidential report of the military intelligence, India’s 231 districts in 13 states, including three in the NCR, are now being targeted by the Maoist to achieve its ultimate aim - seize power in Delhi by 2050.

So far, it was believed that about 170 districts falling under the dreaded ‘Red Corridor’, also known as the Dandekaran Belt, are reeling under the Maoist terror.

In Chhattisgarh, Bastar’s dense jungles of bamboo, sal, teak, sheesam and high hills, valleys, streams, waterfalls and natural caves are considered to be the Maoists’ centre of gravity. Before splitting into three districts, Bastar was one of the largest districts in India, with an area of 39,114 sq km, greater than Kerala and some other countries like Belgium and Israel.

In southern Bastar, the Maoists have declared the Chintainer area as their Dandekaran state’s capital.

The ‘Red Corridor’ runs through the dense forest and tribal belt, from Nepal through Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and all the way to Andhra Pradesh and to the upper reaches of Maharashtra, and some parts of Karnataka.

Inside their corridor, the Naxalites run a parallel government and vow to continue their fight against the state - a full-fledged war they call ‘people’s struggle’.

All the Left-wing militant organisations, including the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) and the People’s War Group (PWG), after their merger are now operating under the flagship rebel party - CPI (Maoist).

The Maoist have come to be known as the Naxalism movement, which began as a small uprising of people in Naxalbari, West Bengal, decades ago. Today, their movement that follows Mao-tse-Tung’s socio-political ideology based on his thinking that ‘political power grows out of the barrel of a gun’ has become a big meance in various states.

Confidential Central intelligence inputs made available to all the Naxalite-affected states have issued an alert about the red rebels setting up ‘urban cells’ in certain pockets of sensitive places like New Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Uttrakhand.

In the NCR, sources revealed that the Maoists are trying to catch the young talent in universities and in economically poor districts. During the Gujjar agitation in Rajasthan, the Maoists attempted to penetrate it.

So far, the urban units in Chhattisgarh’s capital, Raipur, and elsewhere like the NCR are not indulging in violence. “But who knows the urban Naxals may start firing guns like Jammu and Kashmir terrorists,” observed Chhattisgarh’s Director General of Police Vishwa Ranjan.

The Central intelligence reports have also issued a warning that the Maoists are now in the process of identifying ‘new operational areas’ across the country. They are keenly looking at industrial belts, where big corporate houses are planning to set up the Special Economic Zones (SEZs), an easy target to launch violent agitation.

A seized Maoist document reveals how the Naxals had made the scene hot in West Bengal’s Nandigram and Singur, where the Tatas wanted to set up the small car ‘Nano’ factory. The state police is currently busy in ‘reclaiming’ Lalgarh. Sources said the Maoists are now giving a priority to Mumbai-Surat road, where new industries are mushrooming.

“Not everyone in the urban network is a Maoist. There are genuine civil liberty activists, Gandhians, writers, poets, and journalists, members of many so-called human rights organisations, NGOs and artists who have inadvertently got linked to the Maoist network. Indeed, it is astonishing how they are not able to see the Maoists’ gruesome violence in Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh,” said Ranjan.

The Central Committee of the CPI (Maoist) has published a secret red book ‘Strategy and Tactics of the Indian Revolution’, which is said to be the Naxals’ Bible. The book says: “The central task of the revolution is seizure of political power through protracted People’s war.”