NEW DELHI, Aug 24: The Union Home Minister Amit Shah currently on a visit to Chhattisgarh has set March 2026 as the target to eliminate Maoist activities in the country and said “A strong and ruthless strategy is required for launching the last assault against such groups.”
Addressing a press conference in Raipur on Saturday, Mr Shah said he reviewed the situation of Left Wing Extremism in the state along with Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai and senior central and state police officers. He urged the Maoists to surrender and announced that the Centre would start a “new look” surrender policy in the next two months.
“A strong and ruthless strategy is required for launching the last assault against Maoists,” he said. The home minister said Maoist violence was a challenge to democracy and the menace has claimed about 17,000 lives in the country.
In December last year, the Home Minister had asserted that the country was almost on the verge of wiping out Maoist extremism from the country. At the 59th Raising Day of Border Security Force, Mr Shah said, “In the last 10 years, incidents of Maoist violence have gone down by 52 per cent, deaths in these incidents declined by 70 per cent and the number of affected districts have come down from 96 to 45.” The number of “LWE-hit police stations has come down from 495 to 176”, he added.
In the press briefing today, the Home Minister reiterated the facts and said, there was a 53 per cent drop in Naxal incidents during 2014-24 as compared to 2004-14. It is time to deal the final blow to the problem of Left Wing Extremism with a strong strategy. “We believe we will be able to free the country from Left Wing Extremism by March 2026,” Mr Shah said.
The minister added that the government has been working to fill the security vacuum in LWE-hit areas and the security personnel have undertaken operations along with development works. Mr Shah said apart from state and Central Armed Police Forces, the National Investigation Agency, the country’s premier anti-terror probe agency and the Enforcement Directorate have been working together to wipe out Maoist extremism.
The Home Ministry’s Left Wing Extremism (LWE) Division, which was established in 2006, addresses the issue holistically. It monitors the LWE situation and countermeasures being taken by the affected states. The Division is responsible for capacity building of states to combat LWE through schemes of the Home Ministry like the Security Related Expenditure (SRE) scheme, Special Infrastructure Scheme, Special Central Assistance, Deployment of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) in the affected States and Assisting State Governments with initiatives to combat extremism.
(Manas Dasgupta)
