By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI/BHUBANESWAR: Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation, Shri Amit Shah along with the Chief Ministers and Deputy Chief Ministers and other concerned officials of Left Wing Extremism affected states, chairs a review meeting on Left Wing Extremism in New Delhi, Friday. Union Ministers, National Security Advisor, Union Home Secretary, Director Generals of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), Secretaries to the Central Government, Chief Secretaries of States, Director Generals of Police and other senior officials also attended the meeting.
In his address, Union Home Minister said that under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, success has been achieved in curbing leftist extremism in the last few years and now this fight has reached to a decisive phase. He said that with the determination of Prime Minister Modi and the cooperation of all the states affected by Left Wing Extremism, major successes have been achieved against it in 2022 and 2023. He said that Left Wing Extremism will be completely uprooted in next 2 years.
Shri Amit Shah said that vacuum areas have been shrinking since 2019, we have established 195 new camps of CAPFs, 44 more new camps will be established. Shri Shah said that the deployment of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) against left-wing extremism, rationalization of development and setting up camps in vacuum areas are the priorities of the Modi government.
Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation said that there is a need to maintain constant surveillance in the areas liberated from Left Wing Extremism so that this problem does not revive there again. He said that there is also a need to monitor that left wing extremists from areas where this problem has been eliminated do not take shelter in other states.
Shri Amit Shah said that the Modi government has adopted a policy of zero tolerance against left wing extremism since 2014. He said that As a result of our zero tolerance policy, the lowest level of violence and deaths has been recorded in 2022 in last 4 decades. There has been a decline of more than 52 per cent in Left Wing Extremism related violence, 69 per cent in deaths, 72 per cent in security forces deaths and 68 per cent in civilian deaths between 2014 and 2023 compared to the period from 2005 to 2014.
Union Home Minister said that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) are working closely with all state agencies to attack the financing of Left Wing Extremism. He added that all the affected states need to make efforts by forming a joint team of civil and police administration to dismantle the network of financial support of Left Wing Extremism. He said that the Modi government had increased the ex-gratia amount for victims of Left Wing Extremism from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 20 lakh in 2017, now it has been further increased to Rs 40 lakh.
Shri Amit Shah said that the Modi government is taking several steps to speed up the development in Left Wing Extremism-affected states. He said that special attention is being given to areas like road construction, telecommunication, financial inclusion, skill development and education. Shri Shah said the Centre government has launched more than 14,000 projects under the Special Central Assistance (SCA) scheme to accelerate development in the districts most affected by Left Wing Extremism.
He said more than 80% of these projects have been completed and Rs 3,296 crore has been released to Left Wing Extremism-affected states under the scheme. He said under the Special Infrastructure Scheme (SIS), projects worth Rs 992 crore have been sanctioned for the construction of Fortified Police Stations, strengthening of State Intelligence branches and Special Forces of Left Wing Extremism-affected states. In last 9 years, Modi government has increased the Security Related Expenditure (SRE) by more than double in comparison to the earlier period.
