New delhi;Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday called for the choking of financial resources of the left-wing extremist groups and said it was the fundamental instrument to counter the Maoist violence.
The Home Minister’s remarks came during his inaugural address at the day-long security review meeting here with Chief Ministers of Maoist-affected states — days after the leftist rebels killed at least 25 paramilitary troopers in Chhattisgarh.
Rajnath also called for a more proactive approach to deal with left-wing extremism.
“Today we need to consider whether to react only after the occurrence of any incident or we should be more proactive,” he said.
The Home Minister added that left-wing extremist groups were trying to weaken democracy in the country but would “never succeed” in doing so.
He also called for increasing use of technology in security operations and to counter left-wing extremism.
“We need to have enough unmanned aerial vehicles with each battalion. Since extremists use looted weapons, we need to have trackers in the weapons, embed biometrics in triggers and have unique identification numbers in explosive material,” he said.
Highlighting the need for motivation and training, the Home Minister said there was a need to improve the training and other facilities at the camps.
“The residential camps of security forces should be well equipped with power and water facility, and better connectivity,” he said.
He also called for the need to adhere to the Standard Operating Procedures to ensure safety of the security forces.
“There is a need to chalk out a specific action plan for each threat with short term, medium term and long term strategies clearly defined.”
Rajnath said the whole country was agitated over the “martyrdom” of 25 CRPF personnel in Sukma.
“I am convinced that their martyrdom will not go in vain. The day is not far when this mindless violence will end.”
Following the April 24 Sukma attack, the government had vowed to review its anti-Maoist policy. The Central Reserve Police Force had moved its strategic command headquarters for anti-Maoist operations from Kolkata to Chhattisgarh.
The day-long meeting on Monday is also being attended by the secretaries of the union ministries, besides chief secretaries and police chiefs of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, a Home Ministry statement said.
“A holistic review of the situation will be undertaken covering a wide canvas of security and development issues, particularly infrastructure building,” the statement said.
It said issues like role of states in assisting paramilitary forces in their operations, raising and employment of India Reserve Battalions and Special India Reserve Battalion were expected to be part of the discussion.
It would take stock of capacity building and intelligence issues like vacancies in state police forces, capacity building of state intelligence units and other ministry-wise related matters.
IANS