Pillai writes to chief secys,seeks cop strength in Maoist-hit areas

Union Home Secretary G K Pillai on Monday wrote to chief secretaries of eight Maoist-affected states to let him know the strength of police forces in Maoist-affected districts in their respective states.

Union Home Secretary G K Pillai on Monday wrote to chief secretaries of eight Maoist-affected states to let him know the strength of police forces in Maoist-affected districts in their respective states. The states are West Bengal,Bihar,Orissa,Jharkhand,Chhattishgarh,Maharashtra,Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.

The move comes exactly a month after Union Home Minister P Chidambaram had a meeting in Kolkata with West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee,Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik,Jharkhand Deputy Chief Ministers Raghubar Das and Sudesh Mahato,and senior officials of Bihar to chalk out a strategy to launch a joint operation against Naxalites.

Please let me know the exact strength and vacancies in the Maoist-affected areas, Pillai writes to the chief secretaries.

For the Centre,the knowledge is important as it is assessing the demands for Central forces from these states in order to launch an operation against the Naxalites.

Earlier they wanted to know the strength of the police force of the entire state and today he wants to know the strength of the police in LWE areas which we are going to send very soon, West Bengal Home Secretary Ardhendu Sen said.

The state government has already got 22 companies of Central paramilitary forces and the Centre has promised six more. In addition to this,the state government has asked for 10 more companies. The joint operation can be started only when we get Central forces, West Bengal DGP Bhupinder Singh said.

Meanwhile,in a novel move,the state government is going to recruit 1,000 ex-servicemen to fill up the posts of constables. For this,it is going to talk to Sainik Boards and organisations of ex-servicemen.

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To fill up the posts,we are taking people from the panel which has been prepared for recruitment to the Kolkata Police. We are also taking ex-servicemen for filling up the posts of constables. They will have to be given less training as they were already trained in handling arms. We will have to work out on their pay packages too, the DGP told The Indian Express.