Telangana Police department scales down security for Maoist targets

The Telangana police have withdrawn or reduced security cover for several retired officers who served in anti-Maoist operations, citing the decline of the Maoist threat. The move has triggered concern among former officers, who question whether the decision has been taken prematurely.

Hyderabad: In a surprise move, the Telangana police have withdrawn the security cover provided to retired police officers, who worked in the Left Wing Extremist (LWE) field, claiming that there was no longer any threat from the Maoists in view of the latter’s mass surrenders and the declaration by the Union Government that the Maoist problem had been solved in the country.

The withdrawal of the security cover provided to scores of police officers, who were prime targets for the Maoists, has led to a debate on whether it was a bit premature on the part of the Telangana police to withdraw the bulletproof vehicles and scale down the personal security officers.

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Interestingly, there were no written intimations given to the protectees about the decision to remove or scale down the police security cover and withdraw the bulletproof vehicles. The security wing had begun calling the retired officers and informing them that the Government had decided to withdraw all the bulletproof vehicles and the personal security guards.

In the case of some officers, the personal security guards were scaled down to just one gunman, while in respect of others, the gunmen were completely withdrawn.

The sudden decision, being attributed to strict instructions from Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy to scale down the security, has caught several retired police officers off guard. Their efforts to contact senior officers to seek an explanation were being stonewalled in the name of instructions from the Chief Minister, one of the senior officers disclosed.

Most of the retired police officers who took part in the counter-insurgency operations when the Maoist problem was extremely severe are rather taken aback by the latest government decision.

“If only we were told that we would have to take care of our own security some two decades later, we would not have worked in the LWE field. We would rather have approached politicians and taken up cosy postings without being exposed to any danger to our lives from the Maoists,” rued a senior-most officer, who had earlier received encomiums for his stellar role in the control of Maoism.

Officers argue in private that Maoists had suspended the armed struggle only as a tactical move and never announced that they were forsaking the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology. “Several times, they have publicly announced that it was only a temporary suspension of armed struggle. What if some of the Maoists still underground decide to take up attacks again?” an officer questioned.

For politicians and police officers alike, the Intelligence Department assesses the Threat Perception (TP) for all the possible targets and, depending on the TP report, security is provided. While some are given gunmen to protect them round the clock, some officers are classified under Y category, X category and so on. Those in the Y category are given a guard at their residences also, in addition to two gunmen. Some of them are given just a gunman, while higher categories like Z and Z Plus are usually given to Chief Ministers, Home Ministers and others.