Since its inception, the Naxal Movement has developed an ability to generate shock and awe through its spectacular attacks. Experience in fighting the ill-prepared and ill-coordinated state forces has only made it more daring and dangerous. So far it has been their strength to strike by surprise and this reinforce their mastery over guerrilla warfare. With the recent daring jail break incident in the Gajapati district of Orissa, the Naxals have sent a loud and clear message that they are ubiquitous and can strike anywhere at will.

On 24 March 2006, a 200-member armed contingent of the CPI (Maoist) seized the small town of R Udayagiri and went on a rampage that left three security personnel dead. The Naxals kidnapped the R Udayagiri police station officer-in-charge, Ranjan Mallick, and sub-jail superintendent, Rabindra Narayan Sethi, ransacked the tehsil building, an inspection bungalow, and damaged a BSNL tower. The administration was caught unaware of the Naxal game plan. The Gajapati district magistrate, Binod Bihari Mohanty, had to run for his life when the Naxalites approached the inspection bungalow. Not finding him there, the ultras ransacked the inspection bungalow. The Naxals also attacked the sub-treasury and burnt stamp papers worth nearly Rs 40 lakh. They looted a huge quantity of arms and ammunition from the police camp. According to the government reports, three Naxals, including one woman, were killed by the police. However, the three bodies were taken away by the Naxals as they retreated.

This Naxal attack brings back disconcerting memories of the November 2005 Jehanabad Jail raid. Three years ago the Naxals had displayed their capabilities in Orissa in the most dramatic way when they raided the district headquarter town of Koraput and looted arms and ammunitions from the district armoury. But, apart from setting up committees and commissions, do the policymakers realize that their serious omissions in policy formulation and implementation are exacerbating the Naxalite problem? In fact, Gajapati and Malkangiri district are home to the Naxal movement in Orissa.

However, for quite some time now the Naxals in Gajapati were maintaining a low profile; with attention focused on Malkangiri, Sambalpur and Sundergarh districts, they managed to strike in their homeland. Since the last few months, important changes have taken place among the ultras in Gajapati, which the administration had failed to notice. Recently, an established guerrilla leader Gopi Sammi Reddy Jogal, the divisional commander of the Malkangiri unit of the Andhra-Orissa Border Special Zone (AOBSZ), was deputed to take charge in Gajapati. It is widely believed that this attack was masterminded by him. There are other reports that the newly formed Peoples Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA), Orissa Squad, of which Sabya Sachi Panda is the new commander, carried out the operation to prove his might.

Though the chief minister denies it, reliable sources in the police administration reveal that the Gajapati district police was alerted by the Vizianagaram police on 23 March 2006 itself about the possibility of a Naxal attack. Despite this wakeup call, the administration failed to gather more intelligence inputs; this points to the serious weakness of the existing counter-Naxal programmes. Police modernization is not effected by only procurement of arms; the ability of any counter-insurgency force depends on effective intelligence gathering and sharing.

Recently, the Orissa government came out with a White Paper on the Naxal Movement in the state, admitting that 14 out of its total 30 districts are Naxal-infested. Despite this alarming situation, it is unbelievable but true that the government has yet to formulate an effective counter-Naxal policy. The government is making a huge blunder by claiming success through body counting; it must realize that, according to its own report, half its districts are Naxal-affected. Even police officers at the highest level have privately acknowledge that the last decade was lost because the government was not interested in taking note of Naxal consolidation. The prevalent logic was that the Naxals were not creating any problem. What the government did not realize then nor is it realizing now is that by giving Naxals a free hand it has lost its credibility among its own people.