Senior Security Advisor to Ministry of Home Affairs K Vijay Kumar today said that there was a remarkable improvement all across the Country on Naxal front in the last one year. Talking to the media persons at State Police Headquarters in Ranchi on Friday, Kumar reiterated that they were making all efforts to make security forces and development forces work together for overall improvement of security situation in the Country.
“Overall there has been 20-25 per cent improvement all across the country, including Jharkhand, on the Naxal front in the last one year. Jharkhand has done an excellent job where intelligence agencies, State police and CRPF worked to check the Naxal menace in the state,” said Kumar. Intensive discussion on both the points – Security and development, took place during the meeting, he added.
An interstate co-operation meeting was held at police headquarters in Ranchi chaired by Kumar. The meeting was attended by teams of senior police officers from the adjoining Naxal affected States — Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and West Bengal along with the officials of Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and Intelligence Bureau.
Besides coming to a consensus over intestate cooperation to root out Naxalism from the area, several important suggestions were also given by DG CRPF, DGP Jharkhand and DGP Odisha. Separate presentations were also given by the participating states on Naxal activities in their areas. Kumar assured all support to the five lWE affected states to root out Naxalism from the five states.
According to Kumar, surrender of Maoists is as important as their arresting but if they pose a challenge before the security forces, it’s better to kill them. Efforts are also being made to drag Maoists out from their strongholds through intensive anti-Naxal operations.
“Besides that, it would be excellent if we are able to bring in peace in a particular area without arresting, surrendering or killing of a Maoist,” he said. Altogether, Jharkhand Police has been doing excellent work on all the four fronts, said the Senior Security Advisor.
Sharing details of meeting ADG (Operations) and Jharkhand Police Spokesperson SN Pradhan said that a consensus was also reached to crystallize a roadmap to the actions taken against them in the next three month and one year time.
“All the DGs were of the view that exploitation of the interstate border will continue until and unless the Naxal menace is tackled jointly all the five state police,” said Pradhan. The main tasking which took place during the meeting was a consensus has been reached to crystallize the shared targets, which exploits the interstate borders, and prepare a roadmap for the next three months or one year so that joint action could be taken together by the concerned states against them, he added.
“Major proposal during the meeting was to revive the joint task force to be headed by DIGs of the participating states. Operation is to be conducted every month under the Joint Task Force,” said the ADG.
In order to carry out joint anti-naxal operations along the interstate borders so that it does not get exploited by the Naxals, a memorandum of understanding will also be signed among all the five participating states.
“Templates for MoU have already been distributed among all the DGs,” Pradhan said.