Jul 22, 2011

Home Minister’s Naxal Review

            Given the upsurge in Naxal violence in May, the Union Home Minister Shri P. Chidambaram reviewed the anti-naxal operations particularly in Orissa and Chhattisgarh with the Chief Ministers of the states Shri Naveen Patnaik and Shri Raman Singh on 14 June in New Delhi. In the post meeting press conference he indicated that the violence has gone down and assured full support to the two states.

The Home Minister stated, “Violent incidents have been reported in areas falling under 270 police stations in 64 districts in 8 States. However, the number of incidents and the number of casualties is lower than in the corresponding period last year. Up to 14.6.2011, there have been 811 incidents (1025 last year) resulting in 270 deaths (473 last year). Of the 270 persons who were killed, 190 were civilians (296 last year) and 80 personnel of the security forces (177 last year). CPI (Maoist) and other Left Wing Extremist groups continue to target civilians and kill them after branding them as 'police informers'. Of the 190 civilians killed this year, 72 were branded as police informers.

Left Wing Extremist groups also continue to target infrastructure and businesses. This year there were 13 attacks on railway property; 18 telephone exchanges and towers were attacked; 4 panchayat bhavans and 12 school buildings were destroyed; and 82 roads and culverts were also damaged. Our security forces have confronted the challenge of Left Wing Extremists with courage and restraint. There have been 125 encounters between security forces and Left Wing Extremists and 78 extremists have been neutralised. Besides, 883 extremists have been arrested, 243 have surrendered and 315 arms have been recovered.

Besides, our security forces have apprehended top leaders of the CPI (Maoist). Of the 14 politburo members 7 were arrested. Subsequently, one escaped from a jail in Bihar and another jumped bail after he was released by a court in Andhra Pradesh. 11 members of the Central Committee were also arrested and are in judicial custody. Today, we reviewed the situation in Chhattisgarh and Orissa, especially the area along the border of the two States. Chhattisgarh has reported 218 incidents with 90 deaths and Orissa has reported 84 incidents with 26 deaths. Although the numbers are lower than the last year, the level of violence is unacceptable.

The Central Government has offered its full support to the two, State Governments to face the challenge of Left Wing Extremism through the two pronged strategy of development and police action. On the development side, under the Integrated Action Plan of 2010-11 and 2011-12, under which Rs.55 Crore has been allotted to each of the 60 affected districts, 18,724 works have been taken up in Chhattisgarh and 10,427 works have been taken up in Orissa. Of these, 2,237 works in Chhattisgarh and 2,693 works in Orissa have been completed. The other works are in progress.” [Based on PIB Report].

With the Maoists having commenced their pre monsoon tactical counter offensive this time the border areas of Orissa and Chhattisgarh seem to be the focus and the Home Minister’s meeting with the two Chief Ministers is indicative of the government’s keenness to get on with the challenge and keep the spread of the militancy under control. Thus additional troops are also being allotted to the two states to ensure that the force level is adequate.

There are substantial central forces already in the two states with Chhattisgarh having 12,600 paramilitary and 7,200 personnel in Orissa drawn from CRPF, BSF and ITBP. The Home Minister has provided enough data to substantiate that the level of violence in these states is coming down and the government appears to be deploying adequate resources for security thereby more improvement should be anticipated. However the guerrillas are likely to exploit some chinks in the security armoury and a major strike could be anticipated in the days ahead.

The Orissa Chhattisgarh and the Chhattisgarh Maharashtra/Andhra fault lines have seen an increase in Naxal operations as the guerrillas are adept at shifting base and focus from one state to another and operate in one while have their base in the other. As they are not having ownership of real estate nor they have to defend any base, their movement is easily facilitated while the state authorities including the central police have to follow the laid down norms thereby imposing major restrictions on conduct of inter state operations. How this issue would have been resolved in the Chief Minister’s conference with the Home Minister remains to be seen? One way is to create a joint command of the police and the administration of the border districts but would require some amount of flexibility on all sides which is not evident at present.