In a sensitive region like North East, the presence of Maoists has the potential of creating serious strategic security complications and the possibility of forces inimical to India using them as a pawn would have to be factored in by the security establishment.
This was stated by former Intelligence Bureau Chief and presently a member of the National Security Advisory Board P.C. Haldar while delivering keynote address at a seminar on “Responding to Maoist spread in India’s North East” organised by the Centre for Development and Peace Studies (CDPS) in Guwahati on Monday.
“In North East the focus of the Maoists is on areas in upper Assam and a few pockets in the interior areas to set up its bases. The choice of upper Assam and the adjoining areas Maoists seemed attracted towards are areas that allow an operational advantage due to jurisdictional divides. Apart from being forested and remote like other traditional haunts of the Maoists elsewhere in the country, the locations in upper Assam provide a proximity to international border and traditional ingress-egress routes of armed groups of the region to their bases in Myanmar,” he said.
Mr. Haldar is also the Centre’s interlocutor in the peace processes with a number of insurgent outfits in Assam including the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and two factions of the National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB).
