Rajnath Singh calls for 'unity of purpose' to tackle Naxals

Asserting that the naxal problem cannot be resolved through “silver bullets”, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday called for a proactive strategy to counter Maoists with an emphasis on smart leadership, aggression and financial choking.

Chairing a meeting of Chief Ministers and top officials of 10 naxal-infested states, Singh came up with 'SAMADHAN' approach combining smart leadership, aggressive strategy, motivation and training, actionable intelligence and dashboard based Key Performance Indicators and Key Result Areas, harnessing technology, action plan and no access to funds.

He was confident that the country will successfully confront the naxals with "full force and competence" and wanted the states to take the ownership of Maoist operations during which paramilitary forces will provide active cooperation.

"The forces on the ground level should not lack leadership. Unity of purpose and unity of action are essential for the success of operations," he said at the meeting which Chief Ministers of West Bengal (Mamata Banerjee), Andhra Pradesh (N Chandrababu Naidu), Telangana (K Chandrasekhara Rao) and Madhya Pradesh (Shivraj Singh Chouhan) skipped.

At the meeting which comes a fortnight after the killing of 25 CRPF personnel in Chhattisgarh's Sukma, he said the “whole country is agitated” over the incident and the Maoists are constantly trying to inflict losses on security forces to boost their morale.

“Today, we need to consider whether to react only after the occurrence of any incident? Should our role not be proactive?” he said, as he invoked the US commission on 9/11 attack which noted that the attack was a result not just because of intelligence failure but failure of imagination.

"Naxal problem cannot be resolved through silver bullets or any short cut but through short-term, medium-term and long-term solutions," he said adding, “choking the financial resources is the most basic mantra in the fight” against naxals.

Singh also emphasised the need for tracking prominent naxal targets by deputing shadow intelligence officers.

Emphasising that the “cancer” of naxalism flourishes in poverty, he said the Maoist strategy is to ensure that the people stay without facilities so that their “vested interest continues unabated” and noted that the anti-naxal fight is a coordinated battle on security and development fronts that has to be “fought to finish and won”.

Pegging the loss of lives of people due to Maoists violence in last 20 years at 12,000, including 2,700 security personnel, Singh said Maoist groups are trying to weaken the largest democracy in the world but they will never succeed in suppressing democracy and development in the country. “I am sure that the attempts to stall development and throttle democracy at gunpoint will not be successful ever,” he said.

Technologies pertaining to space, IT and communication should be used on a greater scale to counter Maoist problem. We need to use UAVs, high-end cameras, GPS tracking, thermal imaging and radar and satellite images, he said.

"Smart leadership full of self confidence should have a solid vision and he should prepare his team in a mission mode. Unified Coordination and Command is needed on the LWE front. Along with strategic command unified command is also required at operation level," he added.