Battling Naxals in Bastar: Rajnath Singh chairs meeting of four CMs

New Delhi: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Monday, chaired a meeting of Chief Ministers of four Maoist-hit states - Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Telangana and Odisha - to firm up plans to give a heavy push to the fight against Naxals in their citadel in Bastar.

The meeting aims to draw out concrete measures to ensure coordination among state police forces and paramilitary forces so that the Naxals do not cross over from one state to the other.

The Bastar region, in the southernmost tip of Chhattisgarh and shares border with Maharashtra, Telangana and Odisha, is known as the citadel of the CPI(Maoists); the entire is deeply wooded and acts as a hiding place for the ultras.

The meeting is also being attended by DGPs of all four states, heads of paramilitary forces and senior Home Ministry officials.

A majority of casualty in Naxal violence in recent past has come from the Bastar region, forcing the Centre to firm up an urgent initiative to counter the rebels.

A total of 14 CRPF personnel were killed by Maoists in December last year in Sukma district in Bastar region.

More than 25 people, including Congress leaders Mahendra Karma and others, were killed in an ambush carried out by Naxals at Jiramghati in Bastar region in May 2013. Congress leader V C Shukla, who was injured in the ambush, died later.

76 CRPF personnel were killed by the rebels in Dantewada in Bastar region in April 2010.

The worst Maoist violence-affected states are Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

The central government has deployed nearly one lakh personnel of paramilitary forces in these affected states to deal with the rebels.