A police constable was on Thursday killed in a pressure bomb blast triggered by Naxals in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district.
After the government came under opposition attack on the handling of Naxal violence, Home Minister P Chidambaram on Thursday said the state governments have the primary responsibility to fight the Maoist menace and the Centre was ready to assist them.
The killing of a policeman taken hostage by Maoists will erode the credibility of the Naxals, but the handling of the situation by the Nitish Kumar government is also questionable, feels social activist Medha Patkar.
'No one is saying that the police can become the solution, the police have to become the first respondent to create a situation where other people can enter,' says Chhattisgarh DGP Vishwa Ranjan.
A group of Naxalites killed two persons and damaged an abandoned police camp in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra, police said on Saturday.
Naxals are trying to spread their tentacles across southern states, according to Andhra Pradesh police chief R R Girish Kumar."Naxals are trying to spread all over (the country). We have evidence that these people (Maoists) are trying to set up their cells even in Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. We would like to sensitise the police of neighbouring states on the lurking danger so that they can have a proper action plan in place," DGP R R Girish Kumar said.
The government has alerted Naxal-affected states against possible Maoist attacks on railway networks, in the wake of Left-wing extremists targeting a Rajdhani Express train in Bihar, by blasting the rail tracks. The home ministry has issued the alert to West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh, apprehending attacks by Naxals on trains and railway infrastructure, as any sabotage on the network can result in large-scale damages, official sources said.
Available information indicates that the CRPF's operation in Chattisgarh last week in which 19 alleged Maoists were killed, had taken place on half-baked information, reports Vicky Nanjappa
The security forces nabbed two ultras after intensifying combing operation on the sixth day today, flushing out the Naxals hiding in various jungles in the borders of Kandhmal and Ganjam, after the mayhem. Sources said that Mahipur outpost constable Chintamani Sahu, who was admitted along with seven others at the SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack, succumbed to the injuries on Wednesday night.
Union Home Minister, P Chidambaram said on Friday that the progress of the on-going operation against the Maoists in the Naxal-hit states was "satisfactory"."The joint operation against the Naxalites is few weeks old and the progress has been satisfactory," Chidambaram told media-persons after a high-level meeting convened in Raipur to review the operation.
Prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh has reportedly convened a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security at 5 pm on Tuesday to discuss the growing threat of the Naxal terror in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Maharashtra, Chattisgarh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Jharkhand.
A first-of-its kind 'battle field hospital' is being set up deep inside the Naxal hotbed of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh which will provide immediate first aid to injured Central Reserve Police Force and other security forces officials undertaking anti-Maoist operations.
As many as 71 elected representatives in Gadhiroli, an East Maharashtra district have resigned from their posts till now, apparently due to Naxal threat. Talking to the media, Chief Executive Officer of the Gadchiroli Zilla Parishad.
At least four Naxals were killed and two CRPF jawans were injured following an encounter with security forces in Taimara Ghati on NH-33 in Ranchi on Friday morning.
Six Central Reserve Police Force personnel and 13 Maoists were killed in two separate encounters in Bijapur district, about 565 km from Chhattisgarh, a senior police official said on Monday.
Defence Minister A K Antony said on Sunday that the government viewed the violence unleashed by Maoists in some parts of the country very seriously.
On an average, Naxals kill at least three persons in as many as six attacks every day. In the first six months of 2010, Maoists carried out a total of 1,103 attacks, in which 534 people were killed. This was disclosed by Home Minister P Chidambaram while speaking at a meeting of chief ministers to discuss the situation arising out of Maoist violence in the country. According to the data presented by the home minister, the extremists have killed 325 civilians.
The Communist Party of India-Marxist on Wednesday said the brutal Maoist attack in Dantewada, in which 76 security personnel were killed, is a reminder that no state government can single-handedly tackle Naxal violence and called for a coordinated action by the Centre and the states.
'The government is trying to give a message that we as political bosses have discretion of deciding what people will read and what people will not read.'
After a sustained operation along the Jharkhand-West Bengal border, the anti-Naxal forces will soon launch an offensive along the crucial borderline of Orissa and Chhattisgarh which is considered a Maoist stronghold.
The surrender of top Naxal leader Gudsa Usendi, mastermind of many lethal strikes including the attack on a Congress convoy in Chhattisgarh last year, is certainly a good news for the NIA, reports Vicky Nanjappa.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Friday that the government had drawn up an integrated plan to tackle the Naxal problem in consultation with the states and was initiating firm action against the Maoists.
"Ghandy was preaching Naxalism, Marxism and Leninism. He was central committee member of Politbureau of CPI-ML, besides looking after Committee of Mass Organisation and international department of Central Publishing Bureau and being in charge of its South Western Regional Bureau," the Delhi Police told Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kaveri Baweja.
Police seized condoms, contraceptive pills and pregnancy test kits from a Maoist hideout following an exchange of fire with red rebels on Odisha-Chhattisgarh border, a senior officer said in Nabarangapur on Thursday.
Former Border Security Force director general E N Rammohan, appointed to inquire into the circumstances leading to the massacre of 76 security personnel by Naxals in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district, has begun his probe.
All India Congress Committee General Secretary Digvijay Singh, who appears to have stirred a hornet's nest with his remarks on Naxalism, will have to do some explaining to the party leadership on his newspaper article critical of Home Minister P Chidambaram when he returns from the US next week.
In a strongly-worded article in a leading newspaper, senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Wednesday questioned Home Minister P Chidambaram's strategy of treating the Naxal issue as a law and order problem, and called for a rethink of the counter-Maoist strategy. At the same time, Singh, a former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, said, "The buck stops with the chief minister for law and order, and not with the home minister."
Refusing to bracket Naxals with terrorists, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday ruled out the use of armed forces against them and said that the government is willing to hold talks with them if they abjured violence.
The explosive, however, remained "undetected" during the demining exercise conducted a day before the attack on Wednesday, they said.
The Congress has pinned its hopes on many of the old-timers and also given representation to some new faces in its first list of candidates announced for the Chhattisgarh assembly polls scheduled next month.
The impact of the explosion led to the collapse of walls and roof of the room where the music system was kept.
In the second brazen attack in as many days, Naxals on Friday blew up an anti-landmine vehicle, killing 10 security personnel in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district. The anti-landmine vehicle of the security force was approaching a bridge near Gatan village when the Naxals triggered a powerful blast and opened indiscriminate fire on them, said the police.Seven Special Police Officers and three police jawans were killed when their vehicle was tossed in the air by the blast.
A Naxal couple which had decamped with weapons from a police station in Dhamtari district of Chhattisgarh was gunned down in a police encounter in the wee hours on Wednesday, a senior police officer said.
He said Reddy had taken the farmhouse on rent claiming he was a farmer in Andhra Pradesh.
Communication, dated February 17 to all state governments, said the CPI (Maoist) planned to capture attention once again
The ultras for the first time this season put up pamphlets, banners and flags on Thursday, appealing to people to observe Maoist week -- from July 28 to August 3.
Vanvasi Chetna Asram founder Himanshu Kumar while reacting to the letter dashed by Chhattisgarh Governor ESL Naramsimhan to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday asking Union Home Minister P Chidambaram not to visit Naxal-hit areas in Raipur and Dantewada on January7, told rediff.com, "It means that the state government has something to hide."
''And topping it all, parties were playing politics with the issue, least concerned about solving the problem. In fact, they were using them to further their own ends," Marwah claimed.
Lalgarh, once a nerve centre of Naxal insurgency in West Bengal, now represents a different place.
Police claimed to have killed "five or six" naxalites, including a deputy commander, in an encounter in Gadchiroli district and recovered from their possession arms, ammunition and naxal literature.
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