With the states red-flagging the Centre’s ambitious NCTC proposal, the Union home ministry has flayed state governments for their approach towards fighting the Naxal terror.
Pointing out the acute deficiencies in state police forces to tackle the threat posed by the CPI (Maoist) which recently carried out a brutal attack on Congress leaders in Chhattisgarh leaving 27 dead, the home ministry has now advised the state police forces to “focus on strengthening basic policing and making police stations the hub of counter-insurgency efforts’’.
Incidentally, through the NCTC, the MHA had envisioned an over-arching counter-terror body which would not only have helped states fight cross border terrorism but also assist them in fighting the biggest “internal security’’ threats posed by Left Wing extremism. “This aspect was totally missed by the states which outrightly rejected the NCTC,” a top official said. The NCTC, which would have subsumed the existing multi agency Centre, was supposed to create a National Memory Bank or central database containing crucial details of Maoist activities, support bases, organisational structure, profiles of Maoist top leadership and interrogation reports of arrested operatives to be readily accessed by all states. Asking states to target the Maoist top leadership, the MHA, in a special session on LWE on Wednesday, noted that “any state which fails to make a dent in the military capability of CPI(Maoist) will not be able to sustain developmental efforts and political mobilisation of the people in affected areas.’’ It was suggested that the special forces also need to target the “military companies and platoons” of the CPI (Maoist) by developing specific intelligence regarding their location. Curre-ntly five top leaders of the CPI(Maoist) are at large. They are: Mupalla Lakshm-an Rao alias Ganapathy, Nambala Keshav Rao alias Basavraj, Thippiri Tirupati alias Deoji, Balmuri Narayan Rao alias Prabhakar and Somji alias Sahdev. Putting the onus on state governments, the MHA lamented that “basic policing’’ functions in worst affected areas have ‘’collapsed’’ and there is no communication between some states which has resulted in tactical advantage to the CPI(Maoist).