Has Note Ban Affected Maoists? Financial Records Say No

Handwritten ‘balance sheets’ found after encounter proves that local groups of Maoists weren’t affected by note ban.

DM Awasthi confirmed that a Chattisgarh-based Maoist group had exchanged demonetised notes adding up to Rs 2 lakh.

(Photo courtesy: ANI)

While announcing the demonetisation policy in November 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had stated it would curb terrorist activities in the country. However, according to some documents recovered from the site of an encounter in Abhujmaad on 7 November, a Chattisgarh-based Maoist group had exchanged demonetised notes adding up to Rs 2 lakh.

The 20 pages worth of handwritten 'balance sheets’, which date from 2013-2017, reports Indian Express, lists the finances of only one janatana sarkar (local government) and includes sub-heads like expenditure incurred by the vikas shakha, raksha shakha, school sanskriti shakha and so on.

DM Awasthi, Special Director General, Anti-Naxal Operations, Chhattisgarh confirmed the existence of the ‘balance sheets’, and said that they may taken help from villagers, forcing them to deposit cash in their bank accounts, and act as contractors who they levy taxes from.

It is true that Maoist groups would have exchanged some amount of the demonetised cash. They could have used villagers, forcing them to deposit cash in their bank accounts, as also contractors who they levy taxes from.

DM Awasthi told <i>The Indian Express</i>

However, he also added that it would be wrong to say that demonetisation had absolutely no impact on Maoist activities in the country, considering they hadn’t carried out certain operations which the police had information about. According to him, this could be an indication that they were ‘preserving their ammunition’, an expected after-effect of the reduction in terror funding due to the note ban.

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However, other officials aren’t so confident about the possibility of Maoist finances being hit due to demonetisation.

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Their lack of ammunition is possibly a supply chain problem as opposed to lack of funds post-demonetisation.

Unnamed officials

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The problem, according to the local authorities, now lies in trying to track down the ‘balance sheets’ of other janatana sarkars , adding that every Maoist organisation from the special zonal committee to the janatana sarkar, reportedly maintains separate accounts and would possibly have exchanged their notes.

“We cannot even begin to quantify the amount”, they said.

As per police data, the Chhattisgarh Police have seized more than Rs 1.05 crore banned notes across the Naxal hit state.

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(With inputs from ANI and Indian Express.)