Press Statement: December 20, 2005
On The Heroic Raid on Girdhi Armoury of Home Guards
On the historic occasion of 150th anniversary of Great Santhal Hul revolt, on 11th November, 2005 the heroic raid and seizure of exploitative rulling class’s armory (Armoury of Home Guards) took place. This was conducted by the brave sons of Jharkhand – the fighters of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) in the land of Jharkhand, irrigated with the blood of brave fighters like Sidhu-Kanhu, Tilka Majhi and Veer Birsa Munda. The people of Jharkhand having dreams of establishing an exploitation free Jharkhand state were highly enthused by this raid, strengthening the hope of realization of their dream. This courageous act spread hopes not only amongst the people of the Jharkhandi Nationality but also amongst the struggling people of various nationalities in entire India.
On the other hand, the exploitative rulling class once again trembled with fear at this action. With the news of the raid on the Girdhi Armoury, not only the fascist BJP-Nitish govt. of Jharkhand, together with their bureaucrats, administration and police machinery, but also the higher officers of Delhi and the Central Govt. lost their sleep.
This action is an indication of the strengthening of the PLGA towards the transformation from the PLGA into a PLA and thereby advancing the struggle to a higher stage.
The brave fighters of the PLGA stormed into the district headquarters of Girdhi on 11th November, 2005 to raid the Armoury of the Home Guards and fled unhurt seizing with them 193 rifles and 2 revolvers. The police and administration were stunned with the surprise attack. The senior officers of police and administration were so terrorized that they locked themselves up in their room even on getting information of the raid.
Under the direction of the Central Military Commission and under the leadership of the Bihar-Jharkhand Special Area Military Commission, the PLGA fighters under the leadership of Zonal command of the Jharkhand Regional Military Commission undertook this heroic action, which was aimed at equipping the cadres, company, platoons, L.G.S. and peoples militia squads with these arms to establish a powerful Peoples Liberation Army. This action was conducted in the present scenario, where the class enemy has been equipping its paramilitary armed forces with sophisticated arms such as AK-47, AK-56, Isans rifles etc., providing them with night vision equipment, mine-proof & bullet proof vehicles and army helicopters, sophisticated communication gadgets, global positioning systems and connecting up the police mobiles in order to counter the guerrilla war. Every police station in the struggle area has been fortified. For all these funds are flowing in hundreds of crores of rupees. In addition, to counter the guerrilla war the rulling class is training its armed forces under the direct supervision of US Army experts in counter-insurgency and Jungle warfare in the hills of Manipur, Hyderabad and in the Army training school at Kanker in Chhattisgarh. Apart from this, new para-armed forces are being raised recruiting local adivasi youth such as the Sengel battalion (in Santhali and Mundari language this means fire).
Besides this, in Jharkhand too, the govt. is dividing the people to suppress the revolutionary movement, making the poor people fight each other in the name of Adivasi/non-Adivasi or in the name of Jharkhandi Adivasis versus other Adivasis. The rulling class is also organizing reactionary elements to build a lumpen gang – the Nagrik Suraksha Samiti. They are forcing ordinary people to join the Samiti against the revolutionaries and indulging in killing of revolutionaries, activists and their sympathizers. They are adopting brutal methods, after killing the people they poke arrows into their bodies and term this ‘sendara’ which means in Santhali language – hunted. This is just like the Salwa Judum in Chhatisgarh. Here, in Jharkhand this is going on under the leadership of the former CM and national Vice President of the BJP, Babu Lal Maradi.
To cope up this situation the fighters of the PLGA have to seize sophisticated arms, apparatus and gadgets from the enemy’s armoury to arm the vast militant masses and in this way strengthen the PLGA to form a powerful PLA. This army alone will be the genuine people’s army, which will protect the people’s rights and dignity and will serve the people. Through building the PLA it will be possible to establish base areas by fighting the well equipped police force of class enemy and smashing its local administrative organs. Then only will it be possible for the peasants-workers to build their own revolutionary people’s government. That would be the fulfillment of the call to “transform the guerrilla zones into base areas and the PLGA in the PLA” given by the CC (Provisional) CPI (Maoist). And the Girdhi armoury raid is the first step in the direction of achieving this goal.
Special Area Military Commission
Communist Party of India (Maoist)
Date: 20.12.2005
[Reprinted from People’s March, Vol. 7, No. 4, April, 2006.]