New Delhi: It was clear-cut instructions issued from the Home Ministry last week to all the central paramilitary forces to launch a major offensive against the Naxals that resulted in the killing of 29 ultras by the Border Security Force (BSF) and District Reserve Guard (DRG) in Chhattisgarh's Kanker district on Tuesday.
Immediately after the announcement of the dates of the Lok Sabha election, the home ministry had several back-to-back meetings with the top officials of the central armed police force (CAPF) as well as central intelligence agencies. In the last meeting that took place at North Block last week, Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla asked all the senior officials of paramilitary forces to launch a massive operation in Naxal-infested areas of mainly Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.
A senior official privy to the meeting told ETV Bharat on Wednesday that all the central forces have been asked to strengthen their local intelligence network.
"In fact, the central forces had also been asked to bolster their security coordination with the state police and other security agencies,” the official said.
Tuesday’s encounter which has been found as one of the major encounters in the last decade eliminating 29 naxals was based on specific intelligence corroborated jointly by central and state security agencies.
"This is a clear example which shows that intelligence gathering and sharing has been increased among all the central security agencies,” said another senior official from the Home Ministry dealing with the naxal scenario.
When asked about the security arrangements during the forthcoming Lok Saha election in naxal-infested areas, the official said, “We have asked all the security agencies to launch an all-out offensive to ensure a peaceful election."
“We have also provided adequate troops into the Naxal-affected states to handle the situation,” the official said. Since Naxal-affected states are going to election in different phases, the Home Ministry has decided that there will be no reduction in security deployment after polling in the respective regions is complete, the official added.
Most LWE-affected states share borders with each other and elections in these states are taking place in different phases. “We have asked all the state governments to remain on high alert during the election time,” the official said.
In the last DGP, IGP conference that took place in Rajasthan in January, Home Minister Amit Shah gave a clear instruction to the officials to go all out against naxals. In fact, it was due to the intensified anti-naxal operations that security agencies have been getting success in the recent past.
The Home Ministry, last month, shared a list of those affected districts affected by Left Wing Extremism (LWE) with the concerned director generals of police of 10 states. The number of such affected districts had also come down to 38 from the previous number of 75.
Interestingly, the 'most affected district' section was created in 2015 with 35 districts to ensure focused deployment of resources. Following a review meeting of LWE areas in 2018, the number of such districts was brought down to 30 and thereafter to 25 in 2021.
