Talk to Naxals, Centre urges states

Giving out broad details of the Andhra government’s engagement with the PWG, Singh said: ‘‘Two sides are sitting across the table, preparatory talks have already started…guidelines are being set…parameters are being defined.’’

A joint monitoring group comprising representatives of the state and the PWG — headed by a retired bureaucrat Sankaran — had already been set up, and the Andhra government had last month lifted the ban on the PWG.

The peace process in the state had been initiated once in 2002, too, but had to be aborted due to continued violence and attacks by the extremists on police and political functionaries. ‘‘Despite the failure of talks earlier, the Andhra government — supported by the Centre — decided to re-start the process,’’ Singh said.

Appreciating the ‘‘major initiative’’ taken by Andhra Pradesh, he felt that other states could follow in its footsteps.

All states affected by Left-wing extremism today exchanged views and information on the kind of problems they faced and what they were doing to tackle them. The disturbing links between the Maoists and the PWG were also discussed.

At the 15th meeting of the Coordination Committee on Left-Wing Extremism headed by the Home Secretary, state chief secretaries and DGPs talked about tackling the Naxalite menace in a series of discussions. The Naxal-affected states include Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra besides Andhra Pradesh.

While they all agreed that the socio-economic factor of the problem had to be addressed, they were determined not to let their guard down. The positive aspect of the strategy was to have special schemes for providing employment and poverty alleviation. There were also the Special Area Development Programmes for Naxal-affected areas under the border districts’ initiative.

However, at the same time, the Home Secretary said the security forces could not afford to be lax. ‘‘We have started the talks with optimism and hope that they will succeed, but police are vigilant and prepared,’’ he said. The police force of various states was being modernised with arms and equipment to aid actual ground action against the extremists.

‘‘Details of coordination among states and with the Centre were also discussed at the meeting today,’’ Singh added.