Andhra pradesh Chief Minister N Kirankumar Reddy today urged the Centre to station a troop-carrier helicopter at Visakhapatnam for facilitating swift airborne operations in Andhra-Orissa border to tackle Left-Wing extremism. In his address at the Conference of Chief Ministers on Internal Security in New Delhi, the Chief Minister requested the Centre to approve pending request of troop- carrier helicopter immediately and bring expenditure on Counter Terrorism measures in the states under SRE funds, like in the case of Left-Wing Extremism. The state was fully geared up to face the challenges of Left Wing extremism and terrorism, the Chief Minister said, and claimed that the state government had evolved comprehensive strategies to deal with both issues based on its own experience.
The Left-Wing Extremists had been adopting Guerilla tactics and the state police too had developed anti-guerilla forces at all level starting from the police station, District and state levels, the Chief Minister said. “Andhra Pradesh has raised an elite force called ‘Grey Hounds’ which operates at the state level,” he said, adding the forces were trained in jungle operations to counter the Gueriall tactics of Naxalites. The special wing named ‘Special Intelligence Branch’ was tasked with collection of intelligence about Left Wing Extremists, he added.