New Delhi: Union home minister Rajnath Singh will chair a high level meeting on Monday to take stock of the Centre and states’ anti-naxal strategy after the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) lost 37 of its men to left wing extremism (LWE) in March and April alone.
Monday’s meeting in New Delhi—which comes after 25 CRPF men were killed by the Naxals in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district on 25 April—will be attended by the chief ministers of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, the home ministry said in a statement.
The day-long meeting will also be attended by the secretaries of the central ministries, chief secretaries and director generals of the respective state police of the LWE-affected states.
“The Union Ministers in charge of Ministries of MoRTH (Ministry of road transport and highways), Railways, Civil Aviation, MoRD (Ministry of rurual development), Power, New and Renewable Energy and Telecom will also attend. A holistic review of the situation will be undertaken covering a wide canvas of security and development issues, particularly infrastructure building,” the statement said.
Soon after the 25 April attack, following Rajnath Singh’s visit to Chhattisgarh capital Raipur, the home minister had assured that “action will be taken against the perpetrators of the violence”. He had also announced a revision of the anti-naxal policy this month.
“Operational issues like role of States in Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) operations, raising and employment of India Reserve (IR) Battalions and Special India Reserve Battalion (SIRB), capacity building and intelligence issues like vacancies in State Police Forces, capacity building of state intelligence units, other ministry-wise related matters will be taken up during the meeting,” the home ministry stated.
With the Centre shifting its LWE policy, the CRPF has also moved its strategic command headquarters for anti-Naxal operations from Kolkata to Chhattisgarh.