Beating the Maoist threat, the jawans of Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) have constructed a bridge on Tatoda river in the Maoist-infested Kaneri village of Chhattisgarh’s Rajnandgaon district. The bridge will act as a lifeline for around 10,000 villagers of 60 villages.
It is pertinent to mention that the bridge, which could not be constructed in nine years due to threats by Maoists, was completed in just 30 days by the ITBP jawans. The official handle of ITBP tweeted:
https://twitter.com/ITBP_official/status/869104718945042433
It could be noted that 12 years ago, then Sarpanch of Kaneri village Halaur Singh was brutally killed by the Maoists for initiating construction of the bridge on the Tatoda river. In 2008, Chattisgarh government had built a temporary bridge, but it was blown up by the Maoists. Since then the Chhattisgarh government has been trying to build the bridge but no one came forward to take up the project. The state government had finally sought the help of ITBP.
Recently, a bridge over the Sabari River in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district was constructed reducing the distance between Sukma and the Odisha’s Malkanagiri district from 120 kilometres to just 3 kilometres.
Opindia.com has earlier reported that the Centre has been carrying out massive development activities in the Red corridor. The Union Power Ministry is working out an action plan to electrify the Maoist affected areas of Chhattisgarh. The Union government has decided to spend a whopping Rs 11,000 crore for providing road connectivity to 44 Maoist-affected districts of India. Under the project, there will be construction or upgradation of 5,411 kms of roads and 126 bridges.
We have earlier argued that development is a major way to fight the Maoists as they fear the “Achchhe Din”. The Maoists, who look for safe sanctuaries to run their activities, are scared of development because they use lack of development as a facade to exploit the innocent tribals and carry out their activities. Once, development reaches deep into the Maoist hinterland, the left-wing terrorists will finally lose their constituency.
In the recent times, Chhattisgarh has been emerged as the bedrock of Maoist terrorism. The Maoists had killed 26 CRPF jawans in a deadly ambush in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district on 24 April. It was the second major attack by Maoists in the last few months. Another attack by Maoists on CRPF battalion took away the lives of 12 jawans on 11 March.