Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley on Friday said the Congress had no clear policy on countering Naxalism, and it was the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Chhattisgarh which showed the way on how to tackle the ultras.
The Central Reserve Police Force top boss on Thursday said he has asked his troops deployed in anti-Naxal operations to even go to the extent of "violating" the Standard Operating Procedures if such a diversion in rules is required for operational efficiency and safety of the men.
At least seven persons, including three naxals, were killed following an attack by Maoists at a government camp in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh Monday, police said.
'The Congress is trying to reinvent itself -- the caste census demand, OBC emphasis, the anti-corporate thrust, especially on Adani etc -- all this is not standard Congress strategy.'
Projects include steel plant & railway line; Modi's visit first by a PM to the tribal belt in 30 yrs
Intelligence inputs suggest that there is a meticulously-woven Maoist network in the jungle zones of Kerala
A massive manhunt has been launched to nab Naxal leaders behind the Dantewada massacre as investigations into the worst-ever Maoist attack showed that the ultras had used light machine guns in killing 76 security personnel. Sources in the team conducting the investigations said a survey of site of the attack showed that two LMGs had been used by the Naxals -- who were mainly from Company 3 and Company 8 of the Maoists Central Committee and led by Hidma and Papa Rao.
We present verbatim the full speech given by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh while addressing the chief minister's conference on internal security at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi.
Thirteen Central Reserve Police Force personnel, including two officers were killed in a Maoist attack in the Chintagufa area in Chhattisgarh's Sukhma while they were on an area domination exercise. According to reports, the attackers used locals as human shields to prevent CRPF retaliation.
SPOs, who are local youth appointed on a honorarium basis under the provisions of the Police Act, have been a soft target of the Maoists and in the deadliest attack by the ultras in Chhattisgarh this year 39 of them were killed in a single incident.
Launching a blistering attack on Raman Singh-led Bharatiya Janata Party government in Chhattisgarh over law and order situation, Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Thursday reminded people of the May 25 Maoist ambush in Bastar that had wiped out almost the entire Congress leadership.
Chief Minister Raman Singh tells Devjyot Ghoshal that the pressure created by the state's security apparatus in the last few years has created a situation where the development agenda can now take centre stage. But the actual turnaround in the situation will only come in the next three-four years.
Against the backdrop of Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's unrelenting attack against Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday hit back at the BJP, saying the use of "bad" language against political rivals did not bring any dignity to the opposition party.
Officials said while two commandos, identified as constables Linju N and Fateh Singh had succumbed to their bullet injuries on Thursday, their collegaue Lakshman Singh died on Friday.
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi on Sunday termed the deadly Maoist attack on his party leaders in Chhattisgarh as an attack on democracy itself.
Over 100 Naxals on Wednesday ambushed a team of security forces in Chhattisgarh's tribal belt of Bastar on the eve of Lok Sabha polls, killing three commandos of CRPF's CoBRA battalion and injuring five others including two officers in twin attacks.
Lalgarh, once a nerve centre of Naxal insurgency in West Bengal, now represents a different place.
Polling in 70 constituencies began at 8 am and will conclude at 5 pm, except in nine polling booths in the Maoist-affected Bindranawagarh seat in Gariaband district, where voting began at 7 for security reasons, a poll official said.
Ten people including three police commandos were killed on Thursday in two separate attacks by Maoists in Maharashtra and Bihar. The three commandos, who were jawans of C-60 Commando Force, lost their lives in a landmine blast triggered by Maoists in a forest area in Gadchiroli on Maharashtra border adjoining Chhattisgarh in the first major attack in the area in several months, local police control room sources said.
Baghel led from the front to take on the BJP, led by Raman Singh, after being entrusted the task to revive the Congress' fortunes in Chhattisgarh following the third consecutive defeat in the 2013 assembly polls.
American and Pakistani experts on the Pakistan-based terror outfit Lakshar-e-Tayiba, which perpetrated the horrific 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, said at a terrorism seminar in Washington, DC that even though no hard evidence existed of a nexus between the LeT and criminal elements like the Dawood Ibrahim Company or even the Naxals, it couldn't be ruled out completely.
The Prime Minister and the Congress president might meet the same fate as Rajiv Gandhi had met at the hands of the LTTE, said a press release issued in Garwah district by Jharkhand State Central Committee member-cum-Ghatsilla Sub-Zonal Commander 'Anupji' (Anup Mukherji of West Bengal).
Jehanabad: Of Love And War authentically captures Bihar's political skullduggery and caste violence, observes Deepa Gahlot.
The government on Wednesday said the cadre strength of the Maoist organisations is around 8,500 and they have forged tactical understanding with some insurgent groups in the Northeast for procuring arms and ammunition.
Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel resolved issues of merger of other princely states, but 'one person' could not resolve the Kashmir issue, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday, in a veiled attack on India's first PM Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.
The Congress hit back at Modi and accused him of indulging in his 'trademark petty politics' and seeking to hide his 'abject failure and weak-kneed' approach to fighting Naxalism.
Before the situation in the Naxal-affected areas got out of hand, the Raman Singh government intervened to calm tempers between the police and human rights activists.
A total of 207 police bravery medals were declared by the Union government apart from 89 President's police medals for distinguished service and 650 police medals for meritorious service, as per a list published by the Union home ministry.
Nothing has changed from the day we fought for a revolution and today. The issues are the same, and they are also committing the same foolishness, former Naxalite Philip M Prasad tells rediff.com's Shobha Warrier
When the country's largest iron ore producer, NMDC, declares its financial results for 2009-2010, it will report a Rs 1,000-crore drop in net profit. Not on account of last year's slowdown, but Naxalite attacks.
As the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party appeared heading towards clinching its third consecutive victory in Chhattisgarh, Chief Minister Raman Singh on Sunday thanked people of the state for the "hat-trick" and described the day as "historic".
The National Investigation Agency probing the Bodh Gaya attack has ruled out a Naxalite or Hindu extremist link and states that everything now goes on to show that it was either an outsourced group of the Indian Mujahideen or the outfit itself which could have carried out the blasts.
Naxalites on Monday carried out multiple improvised explosive device blasts in Jharkhand's Giridih district, injuring 12 security personnel.
'Our Left is squeamish about democracy. They are so mechanical they have only dogma.'
Seven CRPF men were killed on Wednesday and their weapons looted after Naxals carried out a deadly landmine blast on their vehicle in the jungles of the worst Naxal-affected Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh.
Maoists on Thursday attacked a police station and the house of a Congress leader in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district, killing two of his relatives and leaving two others injured, including his son. Armed Naxalites struck at the Kuakonda police station in the district in the wee hours of Thursday. The policemen retaliated by opening fire. According to the police, six Naxals were killed in the attack, but their bodies are yet to be recovered.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is eyeing a fourth straight term in the tribal-dominated state as the opposition Congress seeks to return to power after 15 years.
From walking up to 10 kms to crossing rivers and spending nights in Naxal-hit areas, the poll officers will have to go past numerous hurdles and face life-threatening challenges to do their duty, but none of them is complaining.
The dome over a stage being erected for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's public rally at Naya Raipur on Saturday collapsed in severe storm, forcing cancellation of his engagements there.
The Kashmir Files director Vivek Agnihotri on Tuesday said he will quit filmmaking if intellectuals, including Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid, are able to prove that events depicted in his film are false.
