New Delhi: Union home minister Amit Shah chaired an inter-state coordination meeting of states affected by Naxal violence on Saturday in Chhattisgarh, as the Centre is aiming to end the reign of red ultras in the next one year.
The high-level meeting is being attended by the Chhattisgarh chief minister Vishnu Deo Sai, deputy CM Vijay Sharma, Union minister of state for home Nityanand Rai, Union home secretary Govind Mohan, Intelligence Bureau director Tapan Deka, chief secretaries and police chiefs of affected states, and director generals of police of central paramilitary forces, among other senior officers from the security establishment.
Officials who did not wish to be named said that the home minister will review the status of action taken by the security forces and intelligence agencies since the last such meeting in January this year, a month after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stormed into power in the state.
“The home minister has directed that the left-wing extremism (LWE) must be eliminated from the country in the next couple of years, and Saturday’s meeting will discuss the strategy for the coming months. The ground forces are ready for a last push to remove Naxals from their core areas, which are now limited,” said a counter-insurgency official who did not wish to be named.
{{/usCountry}}“The home minister has directed that the left-wing extremism (LWE) must be eliminated from the country in the next couple of years, and Saturday’s meeting will discuss the strategy for the coming months. The ground forces are ready for a last push to remove Naxals from their core areas, which are now limited,” said a counter-insurgency official who did not wish to be named.
{{/usCountry}}According to official government data, the security forces have killed 147 Maoists in 104 gunfights since December 2023 until this month. Besides, a whopping 723 Naxal cadres have been arrested, while 622 have also surrendered before the forces.
HT had reported in May that a large number of Naxal cadres are deserting the Communist Party of India (Maoist) fearing they will be killed or arrested in the intensive operations being carried out by the security forces.
The Centre has also accelerated the opening of new camps—also known as forward operating bases (FOBs)—in the Maoists’ strongholds in the last three, which has provided an operational edge to the security forces.
Since December last year, 33 new FOBs have been opened—four in Sukma, eight in Bijapur, two in Dantewada, four in Narayanpur, one each in Kanker and Rajnandgaon, and others. “These camps have helped in coordinated intelligence-based operations of the security forces and have assisted civic authorities in taking development work to the remote villages, shrinking the area controlled by Naxals,” said a second officer.
The minister of home affairs (MHA) informed the Parliament earlier this month that the geographical spread of LWE violence has constricted substantially with the reduction of LWE affected districts from 126 across 10 states in 2013 to only 38 districts in 2024 (with effect from April 2024) across nine states.
The government data revealed that the LWE violence incidents have reduced by 73% from the high level of such violence incidents in 2010.
“The resultant deaths (security forces + civilians) have reduced by 86% from an all-time high of 1,005 in 2010 to 138 in 2023. In the current year 2024 (up to 30.06.2024), there has been a sharp reduction of 32% in LWE-perpetrated incidents and 17% in the resultant deaths of civilians and security force personnel in comparison to the figures of the corresponding period of 2023,” said the second officer.