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India dumps the fig leaf, now
proclaims Naxals as only killers
WSN Network
 NEW
DELHI: Finally, Indian establishment seems to have made up its mind,
and it is not mincing any words to tell the world about it. While
the committees set up to understand and explore the Naxal phenomena
have repeatedly underlined the lack of development, lack of land
reforms, massive corruption and state apathy as the prime reasons
behind strengthening of the Naxalite movement, the Government of
India has been pursuing the singular policy of dealing with it only
as a law and order problem.
Now, it has gone
shameless, and even declared it to the world that while Plan A was
aimed to kill the Naxalites and not bother about any socio-economic
reasons of the menace, the Plan B, Plan C and right up to Plan Z
were no different.
Making this
rather clear, India's federal Home Ministry has now bombarded the
print media directly by issuing advertisements calling the Naxalites
as nothing but cold-blooded killers of innocent citizens.
The first in a
series of advertisements appeared in all national dailies last
Sunday which carried seven photographs of innocent women, men and
children who were allegedly brutally killed by naxals over the past
three years.
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Indian
media is mostly over obliging about such efforts by the
government. In 1985, it has carried a detailed series of
advertisements showing all Sikhs as terrorists, and not a murmur
was heard from any newspaper. |
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Having been
caught too often about faking the killings by Naxalites, this time
the governemnt seems to have chosen pictures from original killings.
The advertisements carry the tagline “Naxals are nothing, but
cold-blooded murderers.”
“These ads are
an attempt to show to the newspaper readers who are more aware than
others that naxals are not wedded to any lofty ideology but carry
out such killings in a routine manner to instil fear among people
and terrorise them,” Home Ministry spokesperson Onkar Kedia said on
Sunday.
The ads also
mark a departure from the government’s stand that naxals were
“misguided elements” who needed to be lured back into national
mainstream.
The ads were
issued after Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram had a series of
discussions with senior officials of his Ministry on thrashing out a
new “media policy” to deal with the gravest danger to internal
security.
“More such
advertisements will be issued in all regional newspapers in the days
to come. Senior officials of the Home Ministry have also previewed
25-minute-long films made on naxalism and tribals and as part of the
new strategy, these will be exhibited by the national network of
Doordarshan and other electronic media,” the spokesperson said.
Indian media is
mostly over obliging about such efforts by the government. In 1985,
it has carried a detailed series of advertisements showing all Sikhs
as terrorists, and not a murmur was heard from any newspaper.
23
September 2009
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