Stressing on strengthening of human intelligence, the lack of which led to the deadly Sukma attack by hundreds of Naxalites who killed 25 CRPF men, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Wednesday instructed the paramilitary top brass to be ever vigilant in Naxal-hit areas to avoid lapses.
Chairing a high-level meeting of security and Intelligence officials in the Ministry in the wake of the Sukhma attack, Singh also called for co-ordination with the States in implementation of latest technology in road construction to avoid delays in reaching the Naxal-hit areas.
Among others, the meeting was attended by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi and Security Advisor K Vijayakumar.
The top security and intelligence brass focused on re-calibration of the anti-naxal strategy and discussed on the ways to make it more effective even while minimising casualties. The CRPF top brass was asked to submit the detailed report soon about the Sukhma attack, said officials.
The extra stress on human intelligence stemmed from reports that the naxalites attacked the CRPF team in Sukma after taking shelter in the houses of local tribals without the security forces getting a whiff of it.
Had the intelligence gathering mechanism been strong enough, the incident could have been averted. Hence, there should be more engagement with the local population in the coming days, an official who attended the meeting said.
The Home Minister directed the officials that there should be no let up in the anti-naxal operations in the aftermath of the recent reverses. Instead, the operations be intensified further, he said. Singh told the officials to look for out of the box solutions to the problem of successive attacks on Road Opening Parties (ROP) in areas where development works were going on.
Road construction activities in naxal-hit areas was also discussed threadbare and Singh asked the officials to look for alternative modern technology so the projects could be completed speedily.
The top officials told the Home Minister that currently 90 per cent of Maoist activities was limited to 35 worst-hit districts, even though the naxals have influence in areas spread over 68 districts in the country.
Singh asked the officials to prepare a blueprint of the proposed new strategy for tackling left-wing extremism which would be presented at the May 8 meeting to be attended by Chief Ministers and top civil and police officials of 10 naxal-affected states. The day-long meeting is expected to be attended by district magistrates and superintendents of police of the 35 worst-hit districts.