Home Minister Amit Shah chaired a review meeting on ‘Left-Wing Terrorism’ at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi today, where the Maoist terrorism situation in ten states of the country was discussed. The home ministry had invited the chief ministers of all the ten states for the meeting, however, only five CMs attended the meeting. The other five states were represented by cabinet ministers or senior officials from the respective states.
Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren and Telangana CM K Chandrashekar Rao attended the meeting chaired by Amit Shah. On the other hand, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, Andhra Pradesh CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, Chhatisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel and Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan sent representatives instead of attending the meeting themselves. Interestingly, all four CMs who skipped the meeting are from non-NDA parties.
According to reports, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee decided to skip the high-level meeting on tackling the menace of Maoism in the state because she is campaigning for her by-election from Bhabanipore on September 30.
Chief Secretary of the State HK Dwivedi attended the meeting instead of the Chief Minister. During the meeting, Dwivedi highlighted the role played by the State government in bringing Maoists to the mainstream through employment opportunities. He has claimed that the Maoist problem has subsided in districts such as Purulia, Bankura, Paschim Medinipur, Birbhum due to the efforts of the government.
Chhattisgarh was represented by chief secretary Amitabh Jain and Director General of Police (DGP) DM Awasthi, while Andhra Pradesh was represented by the state home minister.
The objective of the meeting was to review the security situation and take measures to counter the growing threat of Maoists. In the meeting, the Union Home Minister reviewed the security situation and ongoing operations against Maoists in Naxal-hit areas in the ten states. He also took stock of the requirements of the states, the strength of forces deployed to tackle the Naxal terrorists.
Home minister Amit Shah said there has been a lot of success due to the joint efforts of the Centre and the states in cracking down on Left Wing Extremism. He said that while the incidents of Left Wing Extremism have come down by 23 per cent, the number of deaths has come down by 21 per cent. He said that we all know that unless we get rid of the problem of Left Wing Extremism completely, the full development of the country and the states affected by it is not possible. Without eliminating it, neither we will be able to spread democracy to the bottom nor will we be able to develop the underdeveloped areas, he added.
Amit Shah also reviewed development projects that have been undertaken by the State government in the Maoist zones, to help locals lead a life of normalcy. He conducted detailed discussions on road construction, building of schools and bridges in those areas.
Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said the Maoist problem has been reduced to only three districts in his state, and the meeting discussed what is required to be done to reduce it further.
Union Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Giriraj Singh, Minister of Tribal Affairs Arjun Munda, Minister of Communications, IT and Railways, Ashwini Vaishnav, Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways, Gen VK Singh, Minister of State for Home Affairs, Nityanand Rai also attended the meeting. Senior officials from the home ministry and intelligence agencies were also present. According to the Home Ministry data, although Maoist violence has reduced considerably in the country, the menace is still prevalent in about 45 districts. However, a total of 90 districts in the country are considered Maoist-affected and are covered under the Security Related Expenditure (SRE) Scheme of the ministry.
While Naxal activities were reported from 61 countries in 2019, this number came down to 45 districts in 2020. Between 2015 and 2020, a total of 900 Maoists were neutralised, and 4200 of them had surrendered. Besides, 1000 civilians and 380 security personnel were martyred during the counter-terrorism operations. The union govt is likely to intensify operations against the Maoist terrorists, as several ambushes were done on security forces by the Naxals in the last few years.
In the deadliest terror attack of 2021, a group of 400 Naxals ambushed a massive operation that included the STF, DRG and District Force of the Chhattisgarh Police, the CRPF and its elite COBRA unit on April 3. The teams were deployed in the forests of Chhattisgarh for a search and destroy anti-Maoist operation along the border of the Bijapur-Sukma district.
