Addressing the DGPs’ conference on November 25, Union home minister Rajnath Singh sounded optimistic that the Maoist threat would be eliminated in the next five years. The Maoists, he claimed, were in retreat in almost all the states. No doubt, the security forces have achieved successes against Maoists in the recent past. In the last week of October, they killed 30 Maoists in successive encounters in Orissa’s Malkangiri district—part of the region the Maoists call Andhra-Orissa Border (AOB), which has always been their stronghold. Seized documents reveal the Maoists were concerned about the condition of their movement in AOB and keen to do “something big”.
For Maoists in Chhattisgarh, November turned out to be a bad month, with 12 casualties in just three days. This is important as Bastar has been the heartland of the Maoist movement. Elsewhere, in Jharkhand, six Maoists were killed by the CRPF’s Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) and the Jharkhand Police in Latehar district on November 23.
