Digvijay latest: Why use paramilitary against Naxalites?

A month after publicly criticising Chidambarams anti-Naxal policy,AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh fired a fresh salvo at the govt.

A month after he publicly criticised Home Minister P Chidambarams anti-Naxal policy,AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh today fired a fresh salvo at the government,questioning the use of paramilitary forces in the fight against Naxals in a difficult terrain.

But in the same breath he maintained that there was no difference between the government and the party over the Naxal policy since Chidambaram had already stated that a multi-pronged approach was being followed.

Where is the difference between the party and the government? I had only said at that time that it seemed the government was supporting a military approach, Singh told reporters.

He was referring to his newspaper article last month in which he had slammed the governments anti-Naxal policy and demanded a strategy rethink. He had also accused Chidambaram of intellectual arrogance. The party had then disapproved of his statement,saying party leaders should express their views only within the party forum. Singh later regretted his statement and called on the Home Minister.

Asked about the use of paramilitary forces in anti-Naxal operations,Singh told reporters today that it was not advisable as the terrain is so difficult. He said the debris of a helicopter,which had crashed in such a terrain,could be traced only after 45 days while the debris of another helicopter was traced after a gap of 27 days.

On the use of the Army,Singh said: They are trained to kill. They are not trained to do policing. He said the Salwa Judum was an excellent movement to fight Naxals but the present government had completely ruined it. Referring to the killing of 75 CRPF personnel by Naxals in Dantewada recently,he said the Chhattisgarh police had failed completely as it was their responsibility to provide intelligence inputs to the CRPF.

He demanded that all bomb blast cases involving Hindu fundamentalists should be referred to the National Investigation Agency as he did not trust the police in BJP-ruled states.

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We dont trust the police in BJP-ruled states where there is a trend that whenever there is a bomb blast,link it to a Muslim organization or make a young Muslim boy accused. This should change. I do not trust the police in BJP-ruled states to follow leads about the involvement of Hindu fundamentalist organizations. All these cases should be handed over to the NIA, he said.

At a meeting with the Home Minister recently,Singh reportedly demanded the setting up of a cell in the Ministry to follow all cases relating to the involvement of so-called Hindu fundamentalist organizations in acts of terror. He has also been demanding special courts to expedite trials against Muslim boys from Azamgarh who were arrested for their alleged involvement in terror incidents.

Meanwhile,Singh also jumped into the raging debate on the Indian cricket teams failure in the T20 World Cup,disapproving late night partying by players during the IPL tournament. Observing that many good players did not play,he echoed team captain Mahendra Singh Dhonis view saying that there should be no partying because it will have some impact.