The Home Ministry has set up a multi-disciplinary group in order to choke the funding received by left-wing extremists, Times of India has reported. This multi-disciplinary group will comprise of officials from intelligence and investigative agencies of both the central and state governments who are battling the leftist terror groups.
As per a PTI report, the officials in the group belong to agencies like the Intelligence Bureau, Enforcement Directorate, NIA, CBI among others. Besides this, the Home Ministry is also in the process of creating a segment within the NIA which will investigate cases relating to these groups.
The officials believe that the source of funding for the left-wing extremists like the Maoists includes extortion money collected from private contractors who are involved in government projects, mining contracts, transportation and even the owners of small to medium scale industries.
It is also believed that the Maoists and others earn via the distribution of their ideology papers.
This money earned by the Maoists though is ironically diverted by the top leadership towards their personal wealth, which is then used to extend comfortable facilities to their families and provide top quality education to their children.
This as per the TOI report is the exact opposite of the Maoists’ practice of forcing young children to join their extremist group and stifle development activities in their areas of influence.
A Home Ministry official has claimed that their measures to curb such funding has seen success in blocking the Maoist funding in states like Bihar and Jharkhand after they painstakingly gathered intelligence.
Back in November, there was an indication that the government would clamp down on funding received by left-wing terrorists after it was reported that the National Investigative Agency (NIA) was planning on focusing on the income sources of Naxals.
The agency back then was scheduled to investigate an inter-state module involving Jharkhand and Telangana while also actively probing the Maoist trail in Telangana.
