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This is an archive article published on September 24, 1999
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Security has been tightened in five Naxalite-infested Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh following a poll boycott call by them and recent ...
September 24, 1999 12:00 AM IST
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Security has been tightened in five Naxalite-infested Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh following a poll boycott call by them and recent Naxal violence in Bihar. The constituencies are spread over Bastar, Kanker, Dantewara, Rajnandgaon, Kawardha, Balaghat, Mandla and Dondori districts, which are going to polls on September 25.
Besides deploying personnel belonging to the BSF, CRPF and Special Armed Force SAF, the police may also press helicopters into service. To guard against landmines, security forces have been given detectors. In the hyper-sensitive areas, says DGP Subhash Chandra Tripathi, police and polling officials would avoid vehicles and travel on foot.
As many as 17 PWG dalams are active in the eight districts where violence is feared. Naxalites had struck in at least 18 polling stations here in the last Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.
In Bastar, where the maximum trouble is apprehended, 8220;Operation Flush8221; has been launched along with the Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Orissa police.Around 100 companies of the SAF, CRPF and Central Industrial Security Force have also been deployed.
But even as the security forces are battling the Naxalite menace in Bastar, the CPI has sought the PWG8217;s support for its candidate, asserting there was nothing wrong in it as the latter is a political organisation.
Interestingly, even Chief Minister Digvijay Singh has given a clean chit to the move.
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