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.