'Through this one step, and more steps that follow, log judte jayenge (more people will come together); I'm sure of that.'
Thrice the number of Central Reserve Police Force jawans fell prey to depression, heart attack and malaria than were killed in anti-Naxal operations across the country between 2009-2013, a parliamentary panel has found.
A day after the bullet-riddled body of an abducted policeman was found, Maoists on Saturday said that the three other hostages with them were safe and called for talks as "time was running out" even as police arrested two Naxalites and expanded combing operations to fresh areas in Bihar to trace them.
Two Naxals were also gunned down in these face-offs.
AFSPA can be safely lifted from almost 90 per cent of Nagaland, argues Shekhar Gupta.
They said the Maoist party in India failed to involve the masses and the leadership was not ready to adapt to changing times.
'We are dealing with a very difficult social situation. It needs a lot of maturity, patience and self control,' says Lt Gen V G Patankar (retd).
A special squad of American 'canine officers' have reached Delhi in order to sanitise and conduct anti-sabotage checks at some of the prime venues which will be visited by US President Barack Obama during his forthcoming visit to India.
The gunfight lasted for around one-and-a-half hour, following which the ultras disappeared into the dense forest.
Using the 'Hot Balloon' technique, experts from the Indian Navy brought the launch to the surface on Sunday evening, exactly eight days after it had drowned in an attack by the rebels of the Communist Party of India-Maoist killing more than 30 Greyhound commandos and policemen.
"Why is the Prime Minister silent? Will the Centre continue operations against Maoists after the Railway Minister's statement that Operation Greenhunt will be stopped," BJP Deputy Leader Gopinath Munde said in Lok Sabha.
2008 will go down in the annals of history for the lowest ever incidents of left wing violence in Andhra Pradesh as the state police and its elite wing Greyhounds managed to establish a clear upper hand over the armed rebels. State director general of police Shyamsundar Prasad Yadav in his year-end report said that there was a 30 percent decline in the extremist offences in the state over 2007.
Security forces will need to retool their strategy to ensure that innocent lives are not lost in anti-Maoist ops, reports Vicky Nanjappa
Senior Indian Police Service officer Archana Ramasundram was today appointed Director General of Sashastra Seema Bal, the first woman to head a paramilitary force.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday appealed the Centre to halt anti-Maoist operations in the state alleging that the ruling CPI(M) was "conducting its own operation" in its garb.
The process of decision-making and making large policy moves in the force has slowed down owing to the absence of the designated chief.
Inspector General of Police (Operation) S K Bhardwaj told PTI that the encounter between the police and the naxalites lasted for over an hour in which over 200 rounds were fired from both the sides in which six naxalites and two policemen, including an assistant sub-inspector and a CRPF constable, were injured.
The explosion took place in a hilly area in Bacheli in Dantewada when the personnel were returning to their camp after purchasing groceries from market.
Security forces on Wednesday apprehended four suspected Naxalites from a village in West Midnapore and recovered a weapon from them.According to sources, the troops of Central Reserve Police Force nabbed the four from Jaamthor village of the district after a search operation.Two of them have been identified as Manoranjan Mahato and Sudarshan Mahto.All four have been handed over to the police and a country made pistol has been recovered from them.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, a strong votary of dialogue with Maoists and has sought a halt to joint security operations against them, had a meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi on Wednesday.
Cops ruled out any Naxal hand in the kidnapping.
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.
Expressing concern over increase in infiltration attempts, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Sunday that the Centre and the states should launch coordinated efforts to tackle internal security threats.
Ten security personnel were killed and as many injured in a landmine explosion triggered by Maoists in Orissa's Koraput district on Sunday, the police said.
Home Minister P Chidambaram ruled out military operations as an option to tackle the Maoist menace and said it is a matter of "ethical consideration" not to do so.
Denying reports that Jharkhand had slackened anti-Maoist operations, state police chief on Friday said that they will launch a major operation against the ultras within the next couple of days.
'Had there been an involvement by the Naxalites, we would have had some communication by now. Since there has been no communication, I can say that they may not be involved or behind this incident,' Union Home Secretary G K Pillai tells rediff.com
Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday called Maoists a 'national challenge' which he said the government has accepted and will fight it. On a day-long visit to Chhattisgarh, a day after Maoists killed 14 Central Reserve Police Force personnel in Sukma district, he also announced a compensation of Rs 38 lakh each to the kin of victims of the Naxal ambush and Rs 65,000 each to the injured.
At the end of Dec, the government had Rs 47,273 crore in the USO fund, with annual accruals of about Rs 6,000 crore.
The current question is about the BJP-ruled Centre, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, like its predecessors, not arguing the Union of India's case effectively and continuously, whenever the matter came up in the past, if its case still was that Rajiv's killing was an 'act of terror', asks N Sathiya Moorthy.
"The boat has been traced deep inside the Balimela reservoir in Malkangiri district," said deputy inspector general, South-Western range, Sanjeev Panda, adding that the body of two missing commandoes has been extracted from the waters.
Shocked over the audacious Naxal attack in Chhattisgarh, political parties today favoured use of all legitimate means to "quell" armed insurgency, underlining that they cannot accept the "pernicious Maoist doctrine".
Underlining that India remains 'vulnerable' to terrorism, Home Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday said new groups are suspected to be behind some terror attacks that took place in recent years.
The Andhra Pradesh government has ordered a probe into the deadly Maoist attack in the AP-Orissa border, where at least 35 policemen are feared drowned.
Amid growing concern over the safety of the missing 28 policemen in a water reservoir on the Andhra-Orissa border, the government of Andhra Pradesh has pressed two more helicopters from the Oil and Natural Gas Commission to help in the search and rescue operations. While the deaths of five policemen have already been confirmed, the senior police officials at the spot have expressed fears that the death toll may go up further to at least 12.
Four Central Reserve Police Force personnel, including a sub inspector, were killed on Saturday in an ambush laid by the Maoists in Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh. "When a CRPF party was on a combing operation, the Maoists triggered land mines blasts and opened indiscriminate firing in Brahmabeda jungle of Narayanpur district, about 275 km from the state capital," CRPF sources told PTI. A sub inspector and three constables were killed on the spot, they said.
Once appointed, these officers will coordinate and advise states in their anti-naxal strategy in aspects ranging from training to operations, reports RS Chauhan
The police in Kerala and the Anti-Terrorism Squad have started massive combing operations into the brake pipe cutting incident of the Nilambur-Shoranur passenger train, which was discovered before the train was to leave Nilambur station at 5.30 am on Thursday.
The government will recruit about 2,000 ex-servicemen specialised in commando and jungle warfare tactics to impart cutting-edge training to the Central Reserve Police Force personnel. The recruitment of these ex-servicemen, which will begin in May, assumes significance as 75 para-military personnel were massacred by Maoists in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada recently, raising questions on the operational strategies of the force.
Maoist-hit states have resolved to take a uniform approach under a national policy to deal with the Naxal problem besides launching all-out offensives against the extremists and blocking the flow of finance to them.
