Editorial: Now for normal policing in Bastar
Last August, Amit Shah announced that the Naxalite insurgency in the tribal heart of India would be wiped out by March 31 this year. And a day ahead of that self-imposed deadline, in an extraordinary tough-guy speech in Parliament, the Home Minister declared mission accomplished, going on to certify it as the biggest achievement of the Narendra Modi government since 2014.
Between 2024 and 2026, a total of 706 Naxalites were killed in 'encounters' or by extra-judicial means across 12 states, in addition to 2,217 arrested and 4,839 pressured to surrender. Of the 21 members in the Central Committee of CPI (Maoist), all but two have been 'neutralised — meaning killed or made to surrender. Naxalite fighting units in Dandakaranya, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh have been obliterated by allowing the police to operate with impunity. With its leadership captured or killed and its Central Military Commission wiped out, the CPI (Maoist) is no longer a threat to the Indian state. The number of districts affected by left-wing extremism (LWE) has come down from 126 in 2014 to just two now.
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