Note change hits Maoists

​Hyderabad: Close on the heels of Andhra-Orissa border encounter setback in which they lost their 27 comrades, the CPI-Maoists seems to be facing yet another colossal challenge with the scrapping of high-value notes.

Though the demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes move was aimed at curbing unaccounted cash or black money circulating in the country’s economy, invariably it’s going to affect the Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) financing.

Based on the fact that ultras store the cash in the denominations of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes in dumps to use it for their needs, it’s going to be a herculean task for them to swap the devalued notes with the new currency issued by the government before December 30, the last day for the exchange of notes, especially in view of ongoing counterinsurgency activities of the police in the Maoist heartland of the Dandakaranya.

It may be noted here that according to the Ministry of State for Home Affairs, the CPI-Maoists have been collecting more than Rs 140 crore annually from a variety of sources, allegedly extorting the contractors and industrialists whose establishments are in forest region.

Going by the past instances, the Maoists store large sums of money in dumps packed in polythene covers and boxes made of non-corrosive metals.

Obviously, the cash they hide will be of high value. “The whereabouts of the dumps is only known to the elite group of leaders.

Though the top leaders maintain the secrecy of the location of the dumps, they share the information in bits and pieces to their most-trusted lieutenants.

If one person knows the forest region, the other one knows the area but not the pin-point location,” a senior police official who involved in tracing of a dump said.

Especially against the backdrop of intensified combing operations by Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Telangana police in the face of AOB encounter, the banned outfit may find it difficult even to reach their dumps, he said.

They invariably have to depend on their frontal organisations, couriers, sympathisers and village-level leaders in remote areas, he added.

“We are keeping a close vigil on people living in forest fringe villages by conducting vehicle checks. The ultras may not be in a hurry but they certainly come out with a strategy to exchange the high-valued notes.

However, it may not be that easy to exchange all the cash they have with them at a time when people living in mainstream are finding it difficult to fulfill the formalities such as bank account, Aadhaar and PAN cards,” an IPS officer from East Godavari district who is in-charge of counterinsurgency activities, told The Hans India, on condition of anonymity.

The police sources further add that the cash in dumps that runs into crores is usually used to procure arms and ammunition, and not for their daily needs such as provisions.