Government claims success of strategy to counter ‘Left Wing Extremism’

The Ministry of Home Affairs has claimed that the government’s ‘National Policy and Action Plan’, implemented in 2015 to counter Left Wing Extremism, is paying dividends. According to the government, the policy involved a strategy concerning security as well as development related measures.

"The significant features of the new policy were zero tolerance towards violence coupled with a big push to developmental activities so that benefits of development reached the poor and vulnerable in the affected areas," said the government in a release.

The government has said that following the strategy, there has been decline of 20 per cent in incidents of violence while related deaths have been lesser by 34 per cent in 2017 as compared to 2013 scenario.

“The geographical spread of LWE violence also shrunk from 76 districts in 2013 to just 58 districts in 2017. Besides, just 30 of these districts account for 90% of the LWE violence in the country. At the same time certain new districts have emerged as the focus of expansion by the Left Wing Extremists,” the statement further said.

The Home Ministry recently undertook a comprehensive exercise in consultation with states to review the affected districts in order to ensure that the deployment of resources is in sync with the changed ground reality. Accordingly, 44 districts were excluded while eight new districts were added to the list.

It further said, "As a result of the exercise, 90 districts in 11 States will now be covered by the Scheme, down from 126. The list of ‘Most Affected Districts’ has been pruned to 30, down from 36. The revised categorization is a more realistic representation of the actual LWE scenario."