Naxal violence during the past three years had claimed lives of 143 civilians while 1060 troopers who were martyred in various anti-insurgency operations carried out in insurgency–hit regions of Chhattisgarh informed Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) (Naxal Operations), RK Vij during a Press conference held here at Police Headquarters on Wednesday.
During the past three years, Naxal movement has weakened in Bastar region and 787 Maoists have surrendered during the same period, he said.
There was also an increase in the number of blasts triggered by Maoists, land mines defused by police forces, arson incidents, deployment of central armed police forces (CAPF), numbers of STF personnel and numbers of mobile towers installed in Naxal region, he mentioned.
The numbers of blasts triggered by Maoists jumped from 50 in 2014 to 65 in the year 2015 and 43 different vehicles were also torched by left Wing Extremists (lWE) during the past one year, he said.
In the year 2015, police managed to extract and deactivate 232 land mines which were more than previous year. In 2014 only 149 land mines were detected and deactivated by security personnel in the red zone, he said.
Over mobile connectivity, he said that the Central Government had launched a special scheme for boosting connectivity in the red zone under which 2,199 new mobile towers were approved. Chhattisgarh was allocated 146 towers out of which 141 have been erected, he said.
In 2015, Vij said, police had recovered bodies of 46 Maoists in different actions. During the same period, 47 troopers were martyred in various actions. The forces also seized 91 muzzle guns, 19 pieces of 315 bore gun and 18 pieces of 12 bore guns, the ADG informed.
As promised by Central government, seven new battalions of central armed police forces (CAPF) were also deployed in Naxal-infested region. Four new battalions of CRPF, one of BSF and two new battalions of ITBP were sent in Naxal-hit regions. With fresh deployment currently 44 battalions of CAPF are deployed in Maoist zones, he said.