'Mystery doctor' of Dandakaranya: A shadowy figure with scalpel who’s been aiding Maoists

HYDERABAD: By torchlight successful heavy wood camps, a shadiness surgeon erstwhile chopped adjacent to a beating Maoist heart, fingers dependable arsenic a slug laic lodged centimetres away. For years, the antheral they called Dr Rafiq worked unseen.

Little astir him surfaced beyond quality files.Now, done surrendered Maoists and information officials, a elaborate representation is emerging of Rafiq alias Mandip — an MBBS from Punjab who joined CPI (Maoist) and spent years gathering a aesculapian strategy crossed Dandakaranya successful Chhattisgarh’s Bastar.Surrendered Maoist M Venkatraju alias CNN Chandu described Rafiq arsenic the lone formally trained doc to person joined the movement.

He treated cadres and Adivasis, performed exigency surgeries with scarce resources, trained paramedics and documented medicine. He wrote manuals standardising attraction for slug wounds, malaria, snakebites, gastroenteritis, and battlefield trauma nether wood conditions.

Chandu told TOI, “He trained locals and cadres successful archetypal aid, stitching sutures erstwhile a slug hits, and however to region the bullet.”Intelligence officers said helium moved from Dandakaranya to Jharkhand successful 2016, wherever helium remains astatine large.

Rafiq archetypal surfaced successful 2013 done confessions of arrested cadres, described past arsenic a “mystery doctor” susceptible of surgeries and starring Dandakaranya’s aesculapian wing. Police inputs successful 2018 referred to “Rinki, woman of MBBS Dr Rafiq”, who allegedly treated elder Maoist commandant Prashant Bose.

According to Chandu, Rafiq worked from Maad, the Maoist office portion successful Abujhmarh. “The doc is revered arsenic a deity by locals,” helium said.

“People came from acold distant conscionable to spot him.”Forest villages with small oregon nary entree to ceremonial healthcare relied connected Rafiq for everything from fever attraction to trauma care. Several underground medics, known arsenic “doctors” contempt lacking degrees, were trained done Rafiq’s system. Each dalam had astatine slightest 1 trained aesculapian aide, Chandu said. Medical continuity survived adjacent aft Rafiq near Dandakaranya.Rafiq besides documented herbal medicine cognition passed down by Adivasi vaddes oregon pujaris and incorporated it into Maoist man-uals. “Malaria is astir common,” Chandu said. “People believed unwellness meant God was angry. We told them adjacent if they bash puja, they should besides instrumentality medicine.” Prayer and pills coexisted successful those manuals, which inactive circulate successful interior areas.While information forces tracked weapons and movement, Rafiq softly built aesculapian capableness — a parallel wellness web shaped by war, forests and necessity. As surrenders rise, his way remains elusive.