PLFI, currently the most dangerous LWE organisation, attacks police for the first time

Ranchi, March 25

In what could be a major turning point in the battle between security forces and left wing extremists in Jharkhand, the state's largest splinter group on Tuesday made its first attack against the police.

Three policemen travelling in a vehicle were injured in Khunti district's Murhu after an Improvised Explosive Device allegedly planted by the People's Liberation Front of India went off early on Tuesday morning.

This comes at a time when the PLFI has taken over from the CPI-Maoist to become the largest LWE organisation in the state in terms of incidents. "The PLFI is now responsible for 36 per cent of LWE incidents; the CPI-Maoist's figure stands at around 33-34 per cent," said S.N. Pradhan, Additional Director General, CID.

Tuesday's incident is the first when the PLFI has attacked the police without provocation. "They have fired back during operations. They have also used IEDs against civilians to threaten them while extortion bibs. However, using an IED against the police is a first," added Pradhan.

The three - including the officer-in-charge of the Murhu police station, a Jharkhand Armed Police personnel and a driver - are out of danger. An unverified number of individuals have been detained by the district police for questioning. "This is a very, very worrying development and comes at a bad time. With the elections on, the movement of troops will have to be done more carefully now," said M.L. Meena, Inspector General, Ops.

ADG Pradhan said the PLFI was following up on a press statement issued recently. "They had put out a statement a few months back stating that they would now start targeting the police. This, they said, was because the police had taken out too many operations against them and left them with no choice," said Pradhan.

The PLFI, which is mostly present in Khunti and Gumla districts, has long left toeing the ideological line and has turned to extortionism. They have always been careful not to engage the police and concentrated on winning minor turf battles with the CPI-Maoist. However, an inordinate focus on the CPI-Maoist has let them grow and has allowed them to be ambitious - data available, from July 2011 to 2013 shows that even as the number of incidents attributed to the CPI-Maoist came down from 173 to 98, PLFI's numbers went from 46 to 83.