Casualties in Naxal affected areas rise

New Delhi [India], Feb. 28 (ANI): There is an overall spurt in the casualties in the Left Wing Extremism (LWE) areas. The data as shared by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) for the years 2015 and 2016 reveals that while there is a marginal decline in the number of overall incidents in the LWE areas, the casualties of the security personnel and civilians has risen. Meanwhile, the number of Maoists killed has risen more than two folds. There were 1,089 incidents of violence reported in the years 2015 which had led to total of 230 deaths with 171 being the civilians killed and 59 security forces personnel. Whereas the total number of incidents in 2016 declined to 1,048 but the total deaths caused rose to 278 in which 65 were security forces personnel and 213 civilians were killed. 89 Maoists were killed in 2015 and 222 Maoists were killed in 2016. CRPF DG Sh. Durga Prasad while speaking with the media on the occasion of his farewell conference talked about the measures being adopted to fill the gaps in order to bring the casualties down. "We have demands of the Mine Protected Vehicles and the Bullet Proof vehicles from the field formations and we have placed orders. Few proposals have been approved by MHA and its tenders will be issued," he said. He added that the CRPF is also looking for robots to bring the casualty down in the Left Wing Extremism areas. These robots will be deployed in the suspicious areas and (which) will diffuse the explosives. There is a discernible spurt in the arrests and surrenders of the extremists as per the data shared. While in 2015 the arrests were 1668, it rose to 1840 in 2016. The surrender of the extremists (Left Wing) has risen to 1442 in 2016 from 570. Also, the DG CRPF Sh. Durga Prasad in his briefing spoke specifically on the declining LWE leadership said, "In Left Wing Extremism areas we have also caught weapons, there are indications that they (extremists) have lack of ammunition. Also important is that the cadres are surrendering regularly now." The officers speaking with ANI on the issue accepted that there is a gap in the force in the areas of equipment and suitable technology such as the demining vehicles, upgraded MPVs (most helpful against the IEDs) and the BPVs which will be helpful in LWE and Insurgency prone areas. On February 1, the Maoists had detonated powerful Improvised Explosive Device (IED) on the Sunki-Salur highway in Koraput, Orissa, which killed eight people and eight people casualty. In April, 2016 seven CRPF men were ambushed and killed by Maoists at Mailawada in Chhattisgarh. (ANI)