The Naxals movement suffered another blow when twenty-four Naxals, including 10 women, surrendered during a ‘Holi Milan’ programme in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district.
The violent communist movement in the last few years have suffered a series of reversals as hundreds of its comrade have surrendered and many of its top leaders have either have been killed or captured.
As per reports, the naxals who had surrendered to the police are all lower-rung militia members who were active in Kistaram area of the district and had turned themselves in at the newly set up police camp in Potakpalli village.
According to Sukma Superintendent of Police Sunil Sharma who told PTI that they arrived at the camp accompanied by some 120 villagers and decided to surrender under the police’s ‘Puna Narkom’ (which means new dawn in Gondi) initiative to get the Maoists to renounce violence and return to the mainstream.
Meanwhile, Union Home minister Amit Shah told the Indian upper house, the Rajya Sabha that there is dip of 77 per cent in Left-wing Extremism (LWE) since 2015.
Amit Shah said, “The steadfast implementation of the ‘National Policy and Action Plan to address Left-wing Extremism (LWE) – 2015′ has resulted in a consistent decline in violence,” the MHA told the Rajya Sabha recently. “The incidents of LWE violence have reduced by 77% from an all-time high of 2,258 in 2009 to 509 in 2021. Similarly, the resultant deaths (civilians + security forces) have reduced by 85% from an all-time high of 1,005 in 2010 to 147 in 2021,”.
He told the upper house that, “Joint efforts of the Centre and states in cracking down on Left-wing Extremism led by Prime Minister have yielded much success. In decades of fighting, we have reached a point where the death toll is less than 200 for the first time and this is a shared and great achievement for all of us,”.
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