Maoists’ geographical spread shrinking: MHA

Maoist violence is witnessing a shrink in its geographical spread and such incidents have been “considerably restricted” with just 30 districts in the country, a Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) analysis has said.

The MHA said in its annual report 2018-19 that Maoist violence was reported from 251 police stations in 60 districts spread across eight states in 2018 as against 330 police stations in 76 districts spread over 10 states in 2013.

“The geographical spread of LWE (Left Wing Extremism) violence has also been shrinking considerably. The arc of violence has been considerably restricted with just 30 districts accounting 89% of the LWE violence... Amidst increasing reverses, the CPI (Maoist) has been making efforts to expand to new areas along Inter-State borders without any significant success.,” it said.

The latest statistics showed that 3,782 people were killed in 11,668 incidents of Maoist violence between January 2010 and March 2019 with Chhattisgarh topping the list.

The report said the past five years have seen a “significant decline” in Maoist violence. There has been an overall 26.7% reduction in violent incidents (1136 to 833) and a 39.5% reduction (397 to 240) in Maoist related deaths since the end-2013. In comparison to 2017, 2018 saw a decline of 8.3% (908 to 833) in incidents of violence and the number of deaths by 8.7% (263 to 240).

The casualties to security forces declined by 10.7% (75 to 67) and the number of Maoist cadres eliminated went up by 65.4% (136 to 225).

CPI (Maoist) most potent

However, the CPI (Maoist) continues to be the “most potent” among the various Maoist outfits and accounted for more than 88% of total Maoist violent incidents and resultant deaths.

“At the same time, the developmental outreach by the government of India has seen an increasingly large number of LWE cadres shunning the path of violence and returning to the mainstream. The overall improvement in LWE scenario can be attributed to greater presence and increased capacity of the security forces across the Maoist-affected states, better operational strategy and better monitoring of development schemes in affected areas,” the report said.

The highest number of deaths in Maoist violence was reported from Chhattisgarh where 1,389 people were killed in 3,837 violent incidents perpetrated by the Maoists. Another 1,002 people were killed in 3,400 incidents in Jharkhand while 391 people lost their lives in 1,548 incidents in Bihar.