Greyhounds Ambushed

Only 29 members of the highly-reputed Greyhounds counter-insurgency actionforce of the Andhra Pradesh Police managed to escape a well-organised ambush inwater laid on June 29, 2008, by a group of Maoist terrorists as a party of 65Greyhounds was returning to Andhra Pradesh by a boat after an unsuccessfulcombing operation for Maoists in the territory of Orissa. Thirty-four Greyhoundsare missing and two others are reported to have been killed. It is not yet knownwhether the 34 missing were also killed or whether some of them had beencaptured by the Maoists, who have not made any claim so far. 

The Greyhounds party, which had entered the territory of Orissa reportedly oninformation received by them about the plans of the Maoists to hold a meeting,was returning to Andhra Pradesh in a single motorised boat belonging to theBalimela hydel project. They were returning by the Sileru river. As the boatentered the Balimela reservoir in the territory of Orissa created by the hydelproject, it was attacked by an unknown number of Maoists, who had taken upposition on the surrounding hills. The Greyhounds, who were taken by surprise,tried to retaliate, but their return fire against the Maoists located on thehills above the reservoir was ineffective. The boat kept moving despiteinitially being hit by some bullets, but capsized after having been hit by oneor more grenades thrown or fired from a launcher by the Maoists. All on boardjumped into the water. While some swam to safety, others were not lucky. Theirfinal fate is not yet known. 

The boat had a three-member crew one of whom fell into the hands of the Maoists,but they released him unharmed. His interview by Suryanarayan Pattnaik of the Timesof India (July 1,2008) gives the most authentic account of the ambush. He isquoted as saying in the interview: 

"We were three staff in the boat that belongs to the Balimela hydroproject. On Saturday (June 28) evening, we were just told to be ready to leavefor some place the next day. We did not know the destination. Around 4 AM onSunday, two policemen from Chiltrakonda police station came and we five left forJanbai to bring Greyhound personnel of AP. We came to know that they had gone toPapermetla in Orissa three days ago on an anti-Maoist operation. We reachedJanbai where the Greyhounds policemen boarded the boat. We were 65 people onboard then and left Janbai. The boat had hardly gone about 5 to 7 Kms when theMaoists started firing on the boat. While the boat was crossing a narrowwaterway, one bullet hit it. Before the Greyhounds could act, the Maoists fromthe hills rained bullets on the boat. Though a few policemen retaliated, it borelittle fruit.The Maoists then hurled grenades on the boat. A part of the vesselwas damaged. The boat started sinking. We were helpless and all of us startedjumping into the water to save our lives. I also jumped out of the boat. While Iwas swimming towards the bank, I desperately shouted that I was a civilian. Myscreaming worked. The extremists stopped firing at me, but they asked me to swimtowards them. They were six in number, including two women. All were heavilyarmed. They took me into the deep forests of Gunupur hill. They grilled me for afew hours. After some time, they told me they would release me on condition thatI should never help policemen in future." 

From his account, the following facts emerge: 

• The Greyhounds party had gone into Orissa three days before the ambush. It is not clear how they went---by another boat or by road 
• Three days of combing in Orissa territory did not lead to any Maoists. They decided to return to Andhra Pradesh. A request for a boat of the hydel project was made the previous night through the Orissa Police, but the project authorities were not told that the boat was for the Greyhounds. But since the request came through the Orissa Police, anyone aware of this should not have had any difficulty in guessing that the boat was being requisitioned for the travel of a police party. 
• The number of Maoists who successfully laid the ambush was small. They were not in their hundreds as reported by sections of the media. 
• The boatman did not find any Greyhounds personnel in the custody of the team of six Maoists, who captured and released him after interrogation. It is possible there were other Maoist groups in the area, which had also participated in the ambush of which the boatman was not aware. 

Another Times of India report had stated that the Greyhounds had goneinto Orissa on receiving information that the Maoists were to hold a meeting inOrissa territory. It is not clear whether the Greyhounds received thisinformation from one of their sources or from the Orissa police. 

Whatever be the case, it is evident that certain omissions of securityprecautions by the Greyhounds enabled the Maoists to mount this successfulambush. Since the Greyhounds were on an unsuccessful combing operation in Orissaterritory for three days, while planning for their return to their base inAndhra Pradesh they should have taken into account the possibility that theMaoists would have come to know of their presence in Orissa territory and wouldbe waiting for their return in order to mount an ambush. There was also apossibility of a leak of their return plans the previous night when the boatmenwere alerted to be ready to take a party to Andhra Pradesh early in the morning. 

These factors necessitated two precautions: Stationing of police parties on landon the surrounding hill tops as the boat was moving to prevent any ambush andavoiding the entire party of about 65 travelling by one boat at the same time.In an ambush on land, a police party, if its reflexes are good, has a reasonablechance of re-grouping and retaliating when ambushed. When ambushed on waterparticularly from a height, the chances of re-grouping and retaliating are lowand nil if the boat is hit and capsizes. 

This ambush is definitely a set-back for the Greyhounds, but this need not denttheir reputation as one of the best counter-insurgency police forces inIndia.Set-backs cannot always be avoided. The difference between a good forceand a not so good force is that a good force learns from its mistakes and avoidsrepeating them. A not so good force does not. Being a good force, one can expectthat the Greyhounds will draw the right lessons for their future operations. 

The audacious manner in which the Maoists successfully mounted this ambush of awater-borne police party speaks of their continuing motivation, excellentreflexes and ability to plan and execute operations at short notice. The jihaditerrorism outside Kashmir is mainly urban terrorism. The Maoist terrorism ismainly rural terrorism. The jihadis attack hard and soft targets, the securityforces as well as innocent civilians. Their attacks on civilians areindiscriminate. The Maoists focus on hard targets from the security forces andtheir perceived class enemies. Their terrorism is well-calibrated and selectivein order not to create feelings of revulsion against them in the minds of thepublic. The muted public reaction to the Maoist ambush is indicative of thesuccess of their methods. 

The Greyhounds have become a legend with the police forces in the statesaffected by Maoist insurgency. There has been a lot of public adulation of theGreyhounds. As a result, the Andhra Pradesh Police have acquired the convictionthat such forces are the real answer to terrorism. After a number of jihadi actsof terrorism in Hyderabad last year, the Andhra Pradesh police decided to raisea separate, but similar force tailor-made to deal with the urban jihaditerrorism. It has been named the Octopus. 

The AP Police seem to have a fascination for such esoteric names for theirspecial forces. Such forces alone cannot effectively deal with terrorism unlesscomplemented by skillful political handling of the public grievances that giverise to terrorism and strengthening traditional policing in matters like urbanand rural patrolling, police-community relations and successful investigationand prosecution of terrorism-related cases. The record of the AP Police in theinvestigation and prosecution of terrorism-related cases is quite poor. Unlesstheir traditional policing improves, forces such as the Greyhounds and theOctopus alone cannot neutralise terrorism. 

12. Annexed are some extracts from the chapter on Maoist terrorism in my booktitled Terrorism: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow published this month bythe Lancer Publishersof New Delhi

B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. ofIndia, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies,Chennai