Maoists Making Forays Into Southern States: Govt

NEW DELHI: Government on Wednesday said that the Maoists were spreading their network beyond the traditional Red Zone by gradually expanding their activities in southern states including Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

"The CPI(Maoist) is making forays into Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu under the supervision of its South West Regional Bureau and planning to link up the Western Ghats to the Eastern Ghats through these states", the minister of state for home affairs, Jitendra Singh, said in Rajya Sabha.

In response to a Parliament Question, Singh in his written reply said: "Their (Maoists) plan include creating a base on the border of Kerala and Karnataka".

Government agencies have recently found that the CPI (Maoist) cadres are engaged in efforts aimed at establishing a forest route from Wayanad district to Mysore district of Karnataka.

Singh said that the central government had sensitized the state governments of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu in this regard and had also advised them to take "necessary preventive and pre-emptive measures to foil the efforts of the CPI (Maoist)" -- which is the most powerful naxal group in the country.

The CPI (Maoist) and other naxal outfits are, currently, fully active in seven states - Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh - and marginally present in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. It is believed that the Red outfits have started to move into new states after security agencies had stepped up their operations against them in their traditional strongholds in the past one year.

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