Mega anti-Naxal operation launched as March 31 deadline nears, CoBRA units shifted to Jharkhand | India News
New Delhi: With less than a week left for the Centre’s March 31 deadline to end left-wing extremism, security forces have launched an intensive operation across key Maoist-affected areas to track down remaining armed cadres and surrender them.“The plan is to ensure 100 per cent neutralization of armed Naxalites by March 31, a deadline announced by Union Home Minister Amit Shah. It either involves encounters or effective surrender. Some major operations are being carried out in these last 5-6 days of the countdown,” a top CAPF commander told PTI.Security forces are still tracking around 130-150 armed cadres, including two central committee members of the banned CPI (Maoist) and some other divisional-rank operatives.Official sources told PTI that the Center is also preparing an “operations and development” blueprint, which is expected to include the withdrawal of around five Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) battalions from these areas and launch of several welfare schemes.As part of the operation, around three to four CoBRA units of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) are being shifted from Chhattisgarh to Jharkhand for a special operation in Saranda forest of West Singhbhum district, sources said.Misir Besra alias Bhaskar is said to be based in Jharkhand and the CoBRA team is looking for him and his accomplices.In Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region, teams of CRPF, BSF and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) are also being “redeployed” with specific targets to engage armed Maoist cadres in gunfights or force them to surrender, sources said.According to sources, a cross-border drive involving Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Odisha is also in the works.Ramanna, also known as Ganapathy or Lakshmana Rao, is in touch with the Telangana police and may surrender by March 31, according to officials.Another officer said around three battalions of the Border Security Force (BSF), with a sector office headed by a DIG-rank officer, are expected to be withdrawn from Koraput district and adjoining areas of Odisha.The sector office may be shifted to Kandhamal district of the state and the three battalions will either be deployed for border guard duty or moved to Manipur, as the situation warrants.Some CAPF battalions will also be withdrawn from Chhattisgarh, with an announcement expected on March 31. The state police and Chhattisgarh DRG will take over the CAPF camps, the officer added.Chhattisgarh Home Minister and Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sharma announced in Jagdalpur on Wednesday that around 96 per cent of the vast geographical area of Bastar is now free from Naxalite influence.Sources said the CAPF and state police forces have been asked to conduct a joint “de-mining” exercise to find hidden improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and bombs in Naxalite violence-hit areas.In February, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) conducted a fresh review of areas affected by Naxalite violence and notified that the number of Left Wing Extremism (LWE)-affected districts in the country stands at seven.These seven districts are Bijapur, Narayanpur, Sukma, Kanker and Dantewada in Chhattisgarh, West Singhbhum in Jharkhand and Kandhamal in Odisha.The nine LWE affected states, under different divisions, are Jharkhand, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Telangana and West Bengal.According to official data, in 2005-06, a total of 76 districts in nine states were affected by LWE.Home Minister Shah has repeatedly asserted that the LWE threat, once called the biggest internal security challenge for India in 2010, will end by this March.He described Naxalite violence as a challenge to democracy, saying it had claimed the lives of around 17,000 civilians and security personnel so far.The Naxal movement in India emerged in 1967 in Naxalbari, a village in West Bengal at the tri-junction of India, Nepal and Bangladesh.
