In a worrying trend, the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border has witnessed Maoist activities where they are trying to establish organisational bases with a view to forge relations with other insurgent groups to meet the outfit’s military requirements.
Instances of certain Naxal groups involved in incidents of looting of weapons and extortion from local villagers have been reported of late.
“The foray of Maoist into sensitive Northeastern States is fraught with serious strategic implications, since it has potential trans-border possibilities of connection, activities or interaction,” a Parliamentary panel has noted.
Underscoring that the Maoist violence, which has persisted for a long time, has assumed serious and threatening proportions, the parliamentary committee expressed serious concern over the expansion of Maoist influence in new areas particularly in the North-East.
The Committee said, “The presence of lWE in North-eastern parts of the country can derail the socio-economic developmental projects of the Central and State Governments as a result of which, efforts of the Government could go in vain. The Government must show its determination to flush out Maoists from these areas.”
Inputs with the Union Home Ministry also indicate that Maoists are attempting to spread their tentacles into southern States of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and planning to link up the Western Ghats to the Eastern Ghats through these States. The Maoists are also planning to expand their area of activities and carve out a base from for themselves in the tri-junction of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
A number of front organisations are active in Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and parts of Uttar Pradesh in espousing the cause of Maoists and also carry out propaganda on their behalf in the Media. These front organisations, according to the Union Home Ministry, masquerade as Human Rights Organisations and take up issues against security forces at various fora with a view to undermine enforcement actions against Maoists.
“The situation has changed across all the States, and it has changed for the better. There has been an absolute turnaround in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand and now we are chasing the Naxal groups. In Odisha, we are chasing the Naxal groups. There is a u-turn in Gadhchiroli where we are chasing the Naxals as well. These figures actually reflect a situation which has totally changed on the ground in so far as left Wing Extremism is concerned,” Union Home Secretary RK Singh told the parliamentary panel on the Naxal situation.
The figures of Naxal violence across the country, however, have registered a decline in the last two years.
While the number of incidents decreased from 1760 in 2011 to 1415 in 2012, the casualties of security forces also dwindled from 142 in 2011 to 114 in 2012. The number of civilians killed in Naxal violence has also reduced from 469 in 2011 to 301 in 2012.