INDIA: India's government yesterday rushed paramilitary units to eastern Bihar state after Maoist insurgents stormed a jail and adjoining police barracks, killing five people and freeing 350 prisoners, many of them fellow guerrillas.
By late evening over 2,500 troops were deployed across Jehanabad and the surrounding district south of the state capital Patna to try to recapture the escapees and reassure the town's panicked 80,000 residents.
Around 300 rebels in small groups entered Jehanabad on Sunday night, cut off power and virtually took over the town, spiriting away the jailed Maoist guerrillas, including one of their provincial commanders.
It was the biggest ever insurgent attack in impoverished and crime-ridden Bihar, and the first time a town was taken over.
Maoists operate with impunity in some 125 of India's 603 districts in the central, eastern and western regions, affecting a population of between 300 million and 350 million.
They claim they are fighting for the rights of landless labourers, impoverished peasants and the dispossessed.
They operate in regions where abject poverty, widespread unemployment, ineffective policing and corrupt governance aid their efforts.
In the Maoist-affected districts many state institutions have either ceased to exist or have just a token presence. Many such areas, like large portions of Bihar, are populated by traditional under-privileged tribes and rife with caste conflicts.
Maoist cadres, like their counterparts in neighbouring Nepal, fill this "power vacuum" by running parallel administrations.
They carry out activities such as tax collection, running village schools, setting educational curriculums and settling land and other disputes in kangaroo courts.
The Maoists are progressively expanding their influence over villages - some say by coercion and indoctrination - and by encircling but rarely attacking cities.
They have expanded their influence by tactically aligning themselves with India's opposition parties just ahead of state and parliamentary elections, pledging them the vast "vote banks" under their control.
Over the years attempts by state administrations to suspend hostilities and open negotiations with the Maoists have proven futile. The guerrilla groups have used the hiatus in fighting to regroup, rearm and redeploy.
The Indian government's response has been a poorly applied and often a harsh use of force. There have also been abuses of anti-terrorism legislation.
The resulting self-perpetuating cycle of human rights abuses has exacerbated local resentment, and has often driven victims into the Maoist ranks.