Home Secretary to convene anti-Naxal meeting today

New Delhi, July 16 : Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta has called a special meeting of senior officials and police chiefs of four severely Naxalite affected states here today, the focus of which will be how to counter the growing Maoist menace.

Police chiefs and senior officials of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, which together accounts for over 80 per cent of Naxal violence in the country, are expected to discuss current efforts on the security front to deal with Naxalism.

The meeting will be followed by another meeting at the Cabinet Secretary level where these states will be asked to implement Central Government's scheme in a time bound manner.

The meeting has been called in the wake of the killing of Jharkhand's former Welfare Minister Ramesh Singh Munda and over 50 personnel of the elite "Greyhound" anti-Naxal force in Orissa.

This force was created by the Andhra Pradesh Government to deal with the Naxal menace in the state and in other parts of the country.

The Central Government also plans to fine tune a proposal to create a specialised security force of 10,000 people before submitting it to the Union Cabinet for approval.

Since it will take at least two years to raise the special force of 10 battalions, Home Ministry sources said that the Central Reserve Police Force has been asked to provide two battalions (nearly 2,000 personnel) to take up anti-Naxalite operation across various states.

ANI