CORPORATES FUNDING MAOISTS?
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Naxal leader claims corporates funding rebels
Published on Mon, Nov 02, 2009 at 22:13 in 
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New Delhi: Naxals have been reportedly receiving funds from some of the top corporate houses some of which are even listed on the stock exchange.
An arrested Naxal leader in Bihar has reportedly told the authorities that the companies regularly pay the rebels. The Naxal leader, Narla Ravi Sharma, a top leader of the rebels in Bihar and Jharkhand, was arrested in October.
The companies are big players in the metals, mining, steel and manufacturing sectors. But investigators fear these revelations could just be the tip of the iceberg.
Sharma has alleged that many big companies regularly pay a levy to the Naxals in both Bihar and Jharkhand.
The companies named by the Naxal leader have huge interests in mining, steel and manufacturing and are prominent on India's stock markets.
"They (Naxals) forcibly collect levy by force and use of arms. The corporate pay them and they (Naxals) run their organisation with this money," former IPS officer KPS Gill says.
Back in the 1980s and 1990s, in Assam, big tea and oil companies were accused of regularly giving funds to the separatist United Liberation Front of Assam and the National Democratic Front of Bodoland.
Analysts say that corporate groups usually pay up to avoid disruption in their business or abductions of their employees.
ULFA rebels and some others had been treated and provided medical cover by certain corporate houses. The corporate houses said 'look we do it because of humanitarian measure'," says Gill.
In his confession, Sharma reportedly claims that the Naxals spend nearly Rs 80 lakh every year to run the organisation in Bihar and Jharkhand.
He reportedly admitted that during the Nandigram agitation in West Bengal, the Naxals had backed Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress.
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It would be absolutely stupid to blame the corporates for paying "protection" money to the Naxals. This phenomenon is a
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