‘Naxal movement is terror activity’
Union home minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Tuesday termed Maoist activities “terror activities” in the country.
Talking to reporters, Mr Shinde said the government has already made it clear that it considers Naxal acts as terrorism. “We have always maintained that Naxal movement, it has been proved, is terrorist activity,” he said during his monthly press briefing here.
He said, “A person was fired bullets 74 times (on Mahendra Karma’s body who died in the May 25 attack) and stabbed 75 times. Can you say it is a simple thing? Is it not terror? It is a terror act.”
He rejected Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s demand for a “white paper” on internal security and said the government was following a two-pronged strategy of development and offensive action to tackle Naxalism. “I don’t think any white paper is required on it. Mr Modi is chief minister for nine years. He has been attending conference of internal security every year. He should understand the gravity of Naxalism as he is just on the border of Maharashtra, which is affected by Naxalism,” he said.
Meanwhile, the government sanctioned fresh funds totalling `2,079 crore to the CRPF and nine Naxal-hit states, with a bulk of the money earmarked for Central force. “Under the Security Related Expenditure Scheme, on May 28 an amount of `9,885.46 lakh was released as advance to nine left-wing extremism-affected states of AP (`992.61 lakh), Bihar (`1,371.66 lakh), Chhattisgarh (`1,398 lakh), Jharkhand (`2,421.30 lakh) and MP (`55.75 lakh),” he said. The other beneficiary states were Maharashtra (`738.51 lakh), Orissa (`1,780.81 lakh), UP (`108.82 lakh) and Bengal (`1,018.73 lakh).
Post new comment