Working hard to realize the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s regarding Left Wing Extremism Free India and Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s zero tolerance policy against extremism, the Ministry of Home Affairs has reached the final stage of decisive battle against Left Wing Extremism across the country. The security forces today achieved a decisive victory in the ongoing fight against Left Wing Extremism. As a result of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s zero tolerance policy against Left Wing Extremism, for the first time by entering the ‘Budhapahad’ situated at the border of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand and the extremely inaccessible areas of Chakrabandha and Bhimabandh of Bihar and successfully ousting the Maoists from their strongholds, permanent security forces camps have been set up. All these areas were strongholds of top Maoists and a huge quantity of arms, ammunition, foreign grenades, Aero Bombs and IEDs were recovered by the security forces at these places. A special strategy is being adopted against Left Wing Extremism from the year 2019. The coordinated efforts and campaigns of Central and State Security Forces and related agencies have led to unprecedented success in the fight against Left Wing Extremism. On this decisive success, the Union Home Minister Amit Shah congratulated the CRPF and the State Security Forces and said that the Ministry of Home Affairs under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will continue the zero tolerance policy against Left Wing Extremism and Terrorism and this fight will be further intensified. In 2022, the security forces have achieved unprecedented success in Operation Octopus, Operation Double Bull, Operation Chakrabandha in the fight against Left Wing Extremists. 7 Maoists were killed and 436 arrested/surrendered in Chhattisgarh/ 4 Maoists killed in Jharkhand and 120 arrested/surrendered. 36 Maoists arrested/surrendered in Bihar. Similarly, in Madhya Pradesh, 3 Maoists have been killed by security forces. This success becomes even more important because many of these Maoists killed had bounties of lakhs and crores of rupees on their heads like Mithilesh Mahto had a reward of Rs. 1 crore. As a result of the efforts of the Union Home Ministry to expedite these operations, success has been achieved in eliminating the security vacuum from Bihar. In Jharkhand and Odisha, to a great extent success has been achieved in eliminating the security vacuum and in these states the security vacuum will be filled completely by destroying the strongholds of the Left Wing Extremists. Following this strategy, there is an action plan to fill the security vacuum in other states. There has been a steady decline in both the incidence of violence and its geographical spread. This campaign/fight reaching its final stage is proven by the fact that in 2022 in comparison to 2018, there has been a 39 per cent reduction in the incidents of Left Wing Extremism related violence, 26 per cent reduction in the number of sacrifices made by the security forces, the civilian casualties has reduced by 44 per cent, the number of districts reporting violence has decreased by 24 per cent and the number of these districts has been reduced to just 39 in 2022. Compared to before 2014, incidents of Left Wing Extremism violence have come down by 77 percent. Incidents of violence have come down from the highest level of 2258 in 2009 to 509 in 2021. The death rate due to violence has also come down by 85 percent. In the year 2010, death toll was at highest level of 1005 which has come down to 147 in the year 2021 and their sphere of influence has decreased significantly. Simultaneously, the area of influence of Maoists has also reduced significantly and the influence of Maoists has reduced from 96 districts in the year 2010 to only 39 districts in 2022.
