Free Phones Given to Indian Villages to Fight Naxalite Terrorists

Published on: 3rd February 2009

Villagers in the north-eastern Indian province of Jharkhand are being given free mobile phones so that they can call for assistance if Maoist terrorists are in their vicinities. Around 220 villages have been given a single handset each which is preprogrammed with the contract details of the local police services.

Jharkand is one of the thirteen states in which the Naxalite Maoist terrorists have considerable influence. Since 1996, according to government figures, over 4,500 civilians and police have been killed due to terrorist action.

"One night we saw a few Maoist rebels roaming around our village. We used our mobile to pass on information," said Antu Hembrom, a village headman.

"The idea of distributing mobile sets is to strengthen our network system in remote villages," Sudhir Kumar, police chief of the state's East Singhbhum district, a Maoist hotbed, told Reuters. "We are getting a good response."

However, the terrorists also have a modus-operandi of attacking mobile phone networks and taking down their towers - after claiming that the police use the networks to track their mobile phones. A group of Maoists set fire to a Airtel mobile tower in Chatra district's Arugerua village earlier this week - and attacks occur on an almost weekly basis.

 

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