Raipur: Senior police officers of Chhattisgarh and Odisha state convened a virtual meeting on Tuesday to further strengthen the inter-state coordination to fight the Maoist problem. The top cops of the two states discussed the current situation of Left Wing Extremism and further strategies to deal with it.
Sources in police headquarters said that the virtual conference was chaired by the director general of police of both the states with senior IPS officers from the insurgency-hit districts and intelligence wing.
Inter-state coordination between the security forces and cops to carry out joint anti-Maoist operations, mainly on the bordering areas which serve as safe transit trails for Naxalites was discussed in the meeting. Officials said that the inter-state coordination also majorly monitors the control over supply network of Maoists be it weapons, explosives, food, medicines, ration, and other miscellaneous items.
Exchanging the inputs and information collected in the past three-four months about Maoists and their strategies, the DGs discussed strategies to get control over recruitments and carry out joint operations in the next few months.
There were inputs that the Maoists were recruiting young unemployed youths in the villages who were serving as a layer of rural educated wing, to spread Maoists ideologies, carry out protests and rallies against administration and system.
As part of a review meeting of the progress in the past few months, the senior cops discussed next targets in coming months and using technology as a tool to counter Maoist plans, officials said.
While Chhattisgarh police have been maintaining that the Maoists were on the backfoot, they have marked their presence in recent incidents and encounters in Bijapur, Sukma and Kanker that killed one CoBRA commando, injured another CRPF constable in an attack on a security force camp and gunned down two senior Maoists.
Considering the latest incidents, the officers stressed upon intensifying the surveillance, improving human intelligence, and better coordination between security forces and state police.
In one of the recent encounters in November that killed four Naxalites in Bijapur district, security forces had recovered a US-made weapon M1 carbine that triggered curiosity and the police have launched a probe to trace its origin and from where did the Naxalites procure the ancient weapon.
According to police officers, though the origin of the weapon is being found, the issue wasn’t discussed in the virtual meeting and it’s suspected that the Maoists might have looted the weapon from a police station or an armoury. The weapon is neither sophisticated, nor automatic and appears to be like the one that the rich people used to possess and might have been later deposited at armoury or a police station from where the Maoists could have looted it.
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