Sixty-two “hardcore Naxals” surrendered before security forces in Chhattisgarh on Tuesday, police in the poll-bound state said, a development Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh described as a “huge achievement”.
Of these, 55 surrendered with arms and ammunition in Narayanpur district, said IGP (Bastar) Vivekanand Sinha. The “hardcore Naxals” were working under the Kutul area committee of the CPI (Maoist), he said.
“The surrender of such a large group of Naxals is definitely a positive development and it will have a psychological impact on the Maoist cadre,” he said, adding that more Naxals were expected to surrender in the coming days.
Polling for the 90-seat Chhattisgarh Assembly is scheduled to be held in two phases — on November 12 for 18 seats and on November 20 for 72 constituencies. Most of the constituencies in the first phase fall in the Bastar region. The Naxals have called for a poll boycott.
Soon after the surrender, the Home Minister said in a series of tweets that the success of the government’s surrender policy was pushing Naxal cadre to shun the path of violence. “Happy to know that a large number of Left Wing Extremists have surrendered before the Police by giving up their arms in Chhattisgarh. I congratulate the State Chief Minister @drramansingh, the DGP and the police force for this huge achievement,” (sic) he said.
Singh said it indicated that the Chhattisgarh Government was effectively pursuing a surrender and rehabilitation policy for Left-wing extremists.
Narayanpur SP Jitendra Shukla said the lower-rung cadre turned themselves in before Sinha and other senior police and Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) officials at the Narayanpur district headquarters.
Fifty-five of them surrendered with muzzle-loading guns, said Shukla, adding the rebels cited disappointment with the “hollow ideology of Maoists and violence”.
The rebels were working for different sub-groups and frontal outfits of the outlawed CPI (Maoist) for the past eight-nine years. These included the Jantana Sarkar (people’s government), Janmilitia and Sangham groups.
In accordance with the state government policy, necessary assistance would be provided to the cadre who had surrendered, he added. — PTI
