Armed with specific intelligence inputs that Naxals have infiltrated state police forces, Central intelligence agencies have in a recent advisory to Naxal-infested states cautioned them to be extremely careful in holding recruitment drives in Maoist-dominated areas, specially the tribal belt.
The note warns Naxals might have joined the police at junior levels, as constables or even police officers.
These may include both active cadres and Naxal sympathisers.
Describing the Naxals’ modus operandi as 'alarming', the advisory cautions police units to keep all suspicious personnel under. While the pattern was common across the Naxal belt, the threat was acute in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and Bihar.
The Naxals are using police contacts not just to gather intelligence about armed operations against them but also to steal weapons from police armories.
This might explain the recovery of a large quantity of prohibited arms and ammunition in various operations.
Intelligence sources say they have concrete leads on this new Naxal strategy and had shared it with the states.
"We managed to get some important information from some Naxal cadres arrested recently. We are developing the leads, and will try and break this nexus at the earliest," a senior intelligence official said.
The intelligence agencies and state police units are now drawing up a detailed inventory of all weapons lost in armed operations against Naxals. The agencies suspect these weapons might have been pilfered by Naxal police sympathisers while it was officially claimed they were looted in armed attacks.
It was confirmed that the Maoists had developed an impeccable network of informers within police departments.