Hyderabad: Hectic efforts of banned CPI (Maoist) to revive the movement in Telangana were effectively thwarted by Telangana Police, state Director General of Police M Mahendar Reddy said on Wednesday.
In the last one year, Maoists based in neighbouring Chhattisgarh tried to sneak into Telangana and stay here. Based on the Maoists Central Committee orders they decided to have a Telangana State Committee by entering here, the DGP said.
"But our police teams in inter-state border districts worked very diligently, conducted operations regularly and took intelligence-based action. Greyhounds (the elite anti-naxal force of Telangana police), district police, special police...all worked hard together and achieved positive results," he said.
They thwarted and resisted the Maoists efforts and succeeded this year, the Telangana police chief told reporters here.
During 2020, a total of 11 exchanges of fire (EoF) between Maoists and police took place resulting in the death of 11 Maoist cadres, he said, adding that as many as 135 extremists,
including two State Committee members of the banned outfit, were arrested while 45 extremists including Dalam members surrendered before the police.
He said 30 out of the 33 districts in Telangana remained free from violent incidents of CPI (Maoist).
After going to Chhattisgarh, the Maoists attempted to re-establish themselves in Telangana, but the Telangana police successfully foiled their attempts, said Reddy.
On recruitment of cadre in Maoist party, Reddy said there was no recruitment from Telangana. However, 23 Maoists hailing from Chhattisgarh were arrested from bordering areas.
Reacting to a query on the ongoing probe against instant app-based lenders accused of harassing borrowers over repayment, he said 50 cases were registered and 27 people, including two Chinese nationals, arrested. However, as far as the links with China and other countries in these cases was concerned it is under investigation, he said.
"At this stage right now I won't be able to connect it (China and other countries' links with the cases) unless we have full evidence. But, some of the Chinese nationals staying (in India) and connected with the cases have been arrested," the top cop said.
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The Telangana police chief further said there was a six per cent drop in overall crime in 2020 when compared to 2019.
In all 1,50,922 cases were reported during 2020 down from 1,60,571 cases registered in the previous year. The conviction rate increased to 48.5 per cent from 29.4 per cent and death penalties were awarded in four cases. Cybercrime cases substantially increased by 103 per cent during 2020 with 4,544 cases registered as against 2,240 cases.
A total of 1,934 rape cases were reported and in 1,917 cases the offenders were known to the victims, he said.
Of the 1,934 rape cases, 491 were connected to elopement and love affairs. The DGP said 6.65 lakh CCTV cameras were installed across Telangana out of the 10 lakh proposed. As many as 4,490 cases were detected through CCTV footage.
A total of 72 police personnel in Telangana died due to COVID-19, he added.
