India
Maoist casualties decline as security forces intensify operations in Chhattisgarh | India News – Times of India
According to Home Ministry sources, while 861 Naxalites have been arrested this year, the total number of surrenders during the same period stands at 789.
There was a time when Maoists, even if there were casualties, would invariably carry back their dead. This trend has since changed, with 207 bodies of neutralized cadres and leaders counted by counter-Naxal forces so far this year after encounters spread across the seven districts of Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region, Inspector General of the Police (IGP), Bastar. reach Sundarraj P.
At least fourteen of the top CPI (Maoist) leaders have been eliminated so far in intelligence-based, counter-Naxal operations.
The number of casualties inflicted by the Maoists had fallen to 96 by September this year – reaching levels below 100 for the first time in four decades – from a high of 1,005 in 2010.
Counter-Naxal forces are moving deeper into CPI (Maoist) bastions and setting up security camps there as part of an area domination exercise and to facilitate development and governance activities. “The security vacuum in what were once ‘liberated’ CPI (Maoist) zones has been filled by setting up as many as 279 new forward operating bases (FOBs) and camps and expanding the counter-Naxal network,” said one senior official of the Ministry of the Interior. .
According to the target outlined by Home Minister Amit Shah, left-wing extremism should be completely eliminated from the country by March 2026. The intensified counter operations by the security forces in Bastar are towards achieving this goal.
