Kolkata: Exactly a year ago today, joint security forces had launched their offensive against the Maoists in Lalgarh in Bengal's West Midnapore district, an offensive that got its biggest success on Wednesday when eight Maoists were killed in an encounter.
But other than that, the security forces have had mixed results in their operations over the last year. One of their biggest targets, Kishenji, continues to elude them.
Here is a look at how Lalgarh still remains a killing field for Maoists.
On 15 June last year, Maoist backed villagers tore down the house of a CPM leader. This incident turned the spotlight on Maoists in Lalgarh. Later, their squad leader Bikash declared that Maoists tried to kill Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee in a mine explosion on November 2, 2008.
"On 2nd November, we had planned to give Buddhadeb Babu the death sentence," he had said.
On June 18, joint security forces began their march to Lalgarh, an area from where the police had been virtually driven out by the Maoist backed People's Committee against Police Atrocities (PCPA).
A year later, security forces claim that the situation has changed.
"The situation in Lalgarh on 18th June 2009 was that the police couldn't enter the area. They couldn't leave police stations. They couldn't serve people. In comparison, today there is no such place that the police cannot enter," said Manoj Verma, Superintendent of Police, West Midnapore.
But it has been a difficult year for the forces.
On October 22, top Maoist leader Kishenji made a media event of releasing kidnapped police officer Atindranath Dutta just a few kilometers from a security camp. But he has continued to elude them till today.
Five days later, the Rajdhani was hijacked by supporters of the PCPA . Again, security forces could do nothing to prevent it. Even arrests in the case have been few.
The Silda massacre on February 15 was a slap on the face of the security forces, a massacre of 24 jawans of the paramilitary Eastern Frontier Rifles in their own camp.
All this while, there have been strident protests by NGOs and civil society against the joint security force operations in Lalgarh. The protests continue even today.
"We feel it is not appropriate situation to deploy joint forces...You can tackle the situation if you take up development seriously...even if you locally...as a state government ...open up a dialogue as the Andhra Pradesh government had earlier done so successfully," said Sujato Bhadra, an activist.
The protests were not muted even after the most diabolical strike of all, the Gyaneshwari train disaster, for which three members of the Maoist backed PCPA have been named.
The big strikes apart, there are Maoist killings in West Midnapore district almost every day, one year after operation Lalgarh began.