Macabre drama of death will end: PM on naxalism

Ashwini Shrivastava Dantewada, May 9: Making the first prime minesterial visit in three decades to this Maoist hotbed, Narendra Modi today asked the ultras to shed the gun and put an end to mindless deaths in favour of peace.

Those who feel that whether or not this macabre drama of death will end, I can tell you with full commitment and make you believe that there is no need to get disheartened.

This (death) too will stop," he said addressing a public meeting here. On a short visit here, Modi initiated welfare schemes worth Rs 24,000 crore for the Maoist hotbed of Bastar region which include setting up Ultra Mega Steel Plant, a railway line, slurry pipeline and pellet plant.

Modi said there is no future for violence in the country. If there is a future that is through peaceful ways, he said. "In India those people who ask what is the way to get back people who have chosen the path of violence. I understand (Chhattisgarh Chief Minister) Raman Singh has made that way. Only a plough on shoulder can bring solution, not the gun," he said.

Modi, who is the first Prime Minister to visit this Maoist hotbed in three decades after Rajiv Gandhi in 1985, cited the example of Punjab and naxalbari (in West Bengal) where people are living a peaceful life after suffering from violence in the past.

"The land where naxalism was born, go and visit that place and you will see that they have learnt out of their experience and have shed that way.

Today, that naxalbari from where the path of violence had started, from where bomb and guns used to make sound, blood use to shed, today it has ended there," he said. Dantewada, which comes under tribal Bastar region, is rich in mineral resources especially iron ore.

The area has witnessed a string of naxal attacks in the past, with the worst being the 2010 assault that left 76 security personnel dead.

PTI