Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday proposed a long-term plan to curb the menace of Naxalism in India. In his meeting with chief ministers of the 10 states affected by the Maoists operations, the home minister acknowledged that the solution to the Naxal issue does not lie in 'silver bullets' or in 'short-cut'.
"The solution to the problem is not possible through silver bullets or any short cut. Instead, we need to make sound policies, long-term policies," Singh told the meeting on Monday.
The Home Minister proposed a new plan to deal with the 'Naxal menace' - S.M.A.D.H.A.N. The name of the plan stands for Smart leadership, Aggressive strategy, Motivation and training, Actionable intelligence, Dashboard-based KPIS performance indicators, Harnessing technology, Action plan for each theatre and No access to financing.
The meeting, which was attended by CMs of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh focussed on the issue of re-calibrating the anti-Naxal strategy to make it more effective and to minimise casualties.
Read | Chhattisgarh Police arrests 9 Naxalites involved in deadly ‘Sukma attack’ on CRPF
The April 24 assault on a CRPF road opening party that claimed lives of 25 personnel was the deadliest since the April 2010 attack in Dantewada, also in Chhattisgarh, in which 76 personnel were slain.
District magistrates and superintendents of police of 35 worst-hit districts, besides heads of paramilitary forces and intelligence agencies, are also attending the meeting.
Highlights of Rajnath Singh's address during his meeting with CMs of Naxal-hit states
#Maoists extremism cannot be solved with silver bullet
#Looking at the past incidents, we need to bring aggression in our policies against Naxals
#States must lead the operations with the help of paramilitary forces
#Residential camps of security forces should be well equipped with power, water facility&better connectivity
#Intelligence agencies need to develop a network of local sources
#There is need to depute shadow intelligence officers to track prominent targets associated with Left Wing Extremism (LWE)
#Use of UAV/Mini UAV is low currently, each battalion should carry one
#Need to incorporate high regulation PTZ camera, GPS tracking, handheld thermal imaging, radar, satellite image more intensively in our operations
#Need to stop use of arms looted by Maoists by installing trackers, biometric triggers in them
#Unique Identification Numbers for explosives
#Centre to give aide to states for above provisions
#Important to check financial sources of Naxals
Read | Anti-Naxal crackdown: Forces seize arms, ammunition in Jharkhand