Maoist violence takes a waning trend in Bihar

PATNA: Bihar police has claimed that it has been successful in containing the Left Wing Extremism (LWE) in the state with arrests of Maoists and recovery of explosives.

According to the figures released by Bihar Police Headquarters, though there were 105 incidents of Maoist violence in 2014 in comparison to 103 in 2013, only 20 civilians were killed against 36 in 2013.

The number of police personnel who died during such incidents shows a sharp drop to six in 2014 from 25 in 2013.

"There were 21 encounters between police and naxals this year against seven such incidents in 2013, and the extremists did not succeed in snatching any arms from our forces. In 2013 we had lost 36 weapons to them," said Bihar Police Additional Director General (Headquarters) Gupteshwar Pandey.

Pandey said that the police arrested 354 Maoists in 2014 in comparison to 259 in 2013. The forces also seized 1,785 kg of explosives last year in comparison to 40 kg recovered in 2013. The number of detonators recovered also shot up to 2,181 last year as against 243 in 2013.

"This is a big achievement of Bihar Police. It shows the LWE is losing ground," added Pandey.

Meanwhile, Inspector General (Operations) Sushil M Khopde, who also heads the Special Task Force (STF) of the Bihar Police, said the overall picture shows LWE on a downward trend, though they had indulged in such incidents around the Lok Sabha polls.

"It is not that Maoists are not trying to launch attacks, but we have been successful in countering them and hemming them up. Several operations were conducted against them and the STF arrested 94 of them, including several who are hardcore," Khopde said.

Khopde said that additional forces were deployed to conduct anti-naxal operations and stop Maoist activities.

"We received a Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) battalion in October 2014 for anti-naxal operations. We will be receiving one more later this month. Likewise, we are raising one more STF unit by January-end. These will lend additional boost to our measures against LWE," Khopde said.

Around 15 out of 38 districts in Bihar are considered LWE-affected and the police is also planning to establish more fortified camps in the far-flung areas of the worst affected districts to cut-off movements of naxal squads and help stage operations against them.