In the first sight, one will confuse the Ukwa police outpost in Madhya Pradesh’s tribal dominated district of Balaghat, where Left-wing insurgents have established their base in recent times, with a l
In the first sight, one will confuse the Ukwa police outpost in Madhya Pradesh’s tribal dominated district of Balaghat, where Left-wing insurgents have established their base in recent times, with a library.
A huge signboard hanging at the entrance of the police outpost hails the school and college going students to the library with the promise of preparing them for competitive examinations for various government jobs. “Members of the library have swollen to 58, all local adivasis, in the past one year. We have a modest collection of around 200 guides and books mostly related to senior school certificate examination, Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board conducting entrance examinations for medical and engineering courses in the state, and recruitment tests for railways and police,” in-charge of the outpost Surendra Yadav said.
Ukwa is a remote tribal village on the district bordering Chhattisgarh. The security establishment in MP woke up to the Maoist threat in the district a few months ago when intelligence tipped off an arms training being given to local tribal school students by Naxals to groom them as child soldiers.
“Naxals are in the process of opening a new red corridor that will ensure their smooth passage from Andhra Pradesh to central India. The proposed new corridor connects Andhra Pradesh with Central India through south and western Orissa and east and central Chhattisgarh, bypassing the south Chhattisgarh region of Bastar where Maoists are currently under tremendous pressure from security forces,” a senior police officer quoting intelligence reports told this newspaper on Saturday.
“Wooing the youth from the Maoists has been set as the top priority in our counter-insurgency strategy. Accordingly, we have decided to generate awareness, particularly among local college-going tribal students with various employment opportunities opened for them in government sectors. This way, we will succeed in preventing the tribal youth from falling into the hands of rebels,” the police officer said.
“It has been decided to establish libraries in all police outposts in remote areas in the district to make available books and guides pertaining to competitive examinations for various government jobs to local school and college going students. Funds have been earmarked for the purpose,” he added.
“We have chalked out a detailed action plan for all police stations in the Naxal-hit areas. Police personnel have been instructed to do career counselling in the schools to generate awareness among them on employment opportunities for them in different government sectors,” the outgoing inspector general of police, Balaghat, D.C. Sagar said.
