Officials from five states to sign agreements to deal with left-wing extremism

Inter-state cooperation and sharing of intelligence on LWE has been a long recommended step towards dealing with naxal menace.

In a meeting of top officials from five states – Jharkhand, West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha and Chhattisgarh – here on Friday, it was decided that formal agreements would be signed at the top level between them to deal with left-wing-extremism (LWE), particularly on the areas around their common borders. The meeting was headed by Senior Advisor (LWE), Ministry of Home Affairs K Vijay Kumar at the Jharkhand police headquarters. Officials from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Intelligence agencies, besides many IGs, DIGs and other officials also attended the meeting.

Additional Director General of Police (Operations) and Jharkhand police spokesperson S N Pradhan said that the idea behind signing of agreements was to firm up the arrangements that have been existing since long regarding sharing of intelligence, common targets, movement of forces etc. “There was some sort of arrangements along these lines for a couple of years in the past. Then, the arrangement gradually broke away. We are trying not only to revive it, but make it a reality down to the lowest level,” he said.

Inter-state cooperation and sharing of intelligence on LWE has been a long recommended step towards dealing with naxal menace. However, owing to jurisdictional issues, separate chain of commands and other operational problems, the LWE activists manages to get safe haven in other states, when the police force of a particular state takes up an operation, officials said.

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Pradhan said that, for instance, there is a system of sending an officer from one state to another and vice versa to coordinate and share intelligence.

“But, particularly in the border areas, there needs to be a set mechanism at all levels. The agreement would be signed to give a proper shape to the inter-state coordination right from the DIG-to-DIG level down to the police station-to-police station level. Issues like allowing movement of forces from one state to another would also be looked into,” he said.

Coordination with CRPFs, which often carries out joint operations with the local police, will also be strengthened. In due course, for instance, the Jharkhand police would sign agreements with West Bengal police, Bihar police and Odisha police to patrol and improve the quality of operations against naxals in the border areas, added Pradhan.

While all the five states are badly affected by LWE, Jharkhand has shown an improvement in the last year with fatalities and number of incidents both coming down by nearly 50 per cent.

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