Home Minister P. Chidambaram feels the Maoist threat cannot be underestimated and their growing arc of influence has brought them within “striking distance of Kolkata”. He has made anti-Maoist operations the top internal security priority and said the government response has changed in the last 11 months he has been head of the home ministry, from a carrot and stick policy to all-out war.
He is of the firm opinion that unless the so-called liberated zones that Maoists claim to have established are brought back under state control, no administration or socio-economic measures will work. He says that 2,000 of the country’s 14,000 police stations are currently under Maoist siege in the east, centre and south of the country.
rounak