The killing of 76 police by Maoist rebels earlier this month in central India did not come as a big surprise to experts who know most of the forces that are deployed in the dense jungles are hardly trained in jungle warfare.
Most of them undergo a short training course before engaging the rebels in inhospitable terrain is thrust upon their shoulders.
More than 1,000 fighters, armed with sophisticated weapons, ambushed the central police in insurgency-hit Chhattisgarh state, exposing a lack of intelligence and planning by forces who were totally unfamiliar with the rebel territory.
Only eight Maoists were killed in retaliatory fire, as most bullets hit trees instead of the rebels behind the forest cover.
Within days, Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram offered to resign taking full responsibility for the deaths, but will simply owning up help India’s fight against the Maoists at all?
