Jamtoli's dread: Police jungle warfare training camp in the neighbourhood

Shishir Kumar

Now in her 80's, Basanti Devi — a resident of Jamtoli, watches the recruits marching back to the camp. She is riveted, as if she doesn't want to miss even a single step of the jawans. Her wrinkled, wizened face with tiny sparrow-like eyes have seen a lot and the terror still lurks in her unblinking gaze.Sixteen years back Basanti, along with 1.5 lakh people of 245 villages, rose in protest, blocked the roads at Tutuapani, 6 kms from Netarhat, in March and then again in April. The occasion was the protest against the Firing Range in 1994.From the era of the English tyranny to the bloody clash for the firing range and now Naxal violence — Netarhat has been a witness to all. The Police training camp in Netarhat for Counter Insurgency Anti-Terrorist (CIAT) wing, popularly known as Krishi Farm, was set up a couple of years back. The localities see it as an intervention of the police in the area. This development has made the villagers even more restless. After the clashes between the forces and the villagers, the Government had postponed plans of setting up the firing range for next 22 years and its just five years when the story would restart. Moreover, after the closing of the Krishi Farm that stood there many villagers are now unemployed. “We still fear and have sleepless night. At that time we did not let them in our villages but now they are very much in between us. They can strike. We don't know how we shall resist this time,” said a villager.The death of one Sauna Asur still haunts the villagers, who died during the shelling by the 23rd Artillery Brigade. The drumbeats to make them aware about the firing are still afresh in the mind of each who survives.The fear in mind came to the fore when villagers apprehended some jawans, in April this year, who were sent on LRP during the CIAT training in the forests fearing that they had come to vacate the village.“When they were starting this camp, they told that the closing of the Krishi Farm would not affect our livelihood,” claimed a gram pradhan talking to The Pioneer. The localities were given part time job opportunities in the farm, which happened to be the only source of income to many villages of the surrounding area.“Initially we were being involved in the construction works as daily wage labourers, however, things have now changed and we do not get any livelihood support from the camp now,” the gram pradhan added. Amit Mishra, a local villager, said that at first the localities did set up small shops of daily use items, but it did not work out. “First the jawans came out of the camp and bought things of daily use, however, it seems that they now prefer urban markets or the supplies within the camp,” he added.“We still sleep hungry. Once the firing range gets closer, the shelling by the army and their truck that move into our fields would also destroy our crop. I have just kept my fingers crossed that this training camp is not the beginning of it,” Bheema Asur expressed his concern.