Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday, 26 September, held a high level meeting with chief ministers of Naxal-hit states and urged them to take appropriate steps to end Left Wing Extremism in the coming year, Hindustan Times reported.
Pointing out that the deaths due to Maoist attacks have come down to 200 a year, he told the chief ministers that the fight against the insurgent groups was now at the final stages. Therefore, he asked the chief ministers to prioritise solving this issue next year by taking a decisive move.
'Obstruct their Income, Intensify Operations Against Maoists': Shah Tells CMs
Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik , Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, Telangana CM K Chandrashekar Rao, Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Maharashtra CM Uddhav Thackeray and Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren besides other union ministers were present at the meet.
However, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel, Andhra Pradesh CM YS Jagan Mohan Reddy and Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan did not attend the meeting, the report said. They were represented by a minister or senior officials.
Addressing the chief ministers, Shah said that the states and the Centre should adopt a joint strategy to choke the "source of income" of Maoist groups. The home minister reportedly also discussed the various ways through which states could intensify operations against the insurgent groups, obstruct their fund flow, take action against the organisations that operate them and recruit more security personnel.
Shah also suggested that regular meetings with chief ministers, chief secretaries and DGPs could also help solve the problem. He added that the Centre was optimistic in ending the Maoist menace as soon as possible.
'Frequency of Maoist Attacks Have Drastically Reduced'
Citing data, the Union home minister also said that frequency of Maoist attacks have drastically reduced by 70 percent from 2009. While the incidents of attacks from the insurgent groups was 2,258 in 2009, it has dropped to 665 in 2020, he pointed out.
Deaths due to the attacks too, he said, have dropped by 82 percent last year. In 2020, Shah said the country witnessed just 183 attacks, which he said were significantly lesser compared to 2010, when the incidents from the insurgent groups were at an "all time high" of 1,005.
Shah stressed that the removal of Maoist attacks was crucial to spread democracy across the country and bring about growth at places that are yet to develop. "Instead of being satisfied with what we have achieved so far, we need to increase the speed to get what is left," he said, as quoted by Hindustan Times
(With inputs from Hindustan Times)
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