Government sets up committee after Naxal attack to revisit strategy

NEW DELHI: Government today formed a high-level committee to review the Standard operating Procedure (SoP) to finetune the anti-Maoists strategy following the ambush early this week in which 14 CRPF personnel were killed by Naxals in Chhattisgarh.

The committee, headed by Advisor on Naxalism to the Union Home Ministry K Vijay Kumar, was formed by the government and was asked to go into minute details of the Monday's incident in Sukhma district to ascertain whether there was any lapse and suggest ways to avoid such incidents in future.

Kumar, who is a former Director General of CRPF, has been given two weeks to submit its report which will go into suggestions on implementation of the Standard Operating Procedures, how to better use the inputs about Naxals and avoid any casualty of security forces.

Officials of the Home Ministry, the Intelligence Bureau, the CRPF and state governments will be part of the committee.

Since the CRPF personnel, who were attacked in Chhattisgarh, were engaged in anti-Naxal operations for two weeks, the committee is expected to examine the fatigue factor of the forces.

Two days after Naxals had struck in a big way in Chhattisgarh, government today asserted in Parliament that there will be no let-up in operations to eliminate the Maoist menace and promised all support to the security forces to deal with it firmly.