The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has established three new forward bases in the remote Naxal violence affected areas of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand as part of its strategy to strike deep into the Maoist strongholds.
While one each forward operating base (FOB) has been established in Chhattisgarh's Sukma and Bijapur districts, the third has been created in the West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand.
“These FOBs will serve as a base for the security forces to launch coordinated operations in the surrounding areas and will also help in cutting off the Maoist supply lines,” a CRPF spokesperson said.
The bases in Chhattisgarh are located in Dubbakonta under Chintagupha police station jurisdiction in Sukma and Nambi that lies within the Usoor police station limits in Bijapur.
"Both the locations used to be strongholds of Maoists. The establishment of these new camps in the most interior areas will give an edge to the security forces as these will serve as a launch pad for offensive operations against Maoists close to their hideouts," the spokesperson said.
“The presence of security forces in these remote locations will not only weaken the supply lines of the Naxals but also flush them out from these areas and provide boost to development activities in the area,” he said.
The CRPF is the lead anti-Naxal operations force of the country and has deployed close to a lakh troops in about ten Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected States of the country. Some other Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) such as the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, Border Security Force and SSB have been deployed for this task in specific areas along with the State police forces.
According to government data updated till September, in comparison to 2018, there has been 39% reduction in the incidents of LWE violence, 26% reduction in the number of casualties suffered by the security forces while civilian deaths have reduced by 44%. The number of districts reporting LWE violence has decreased by 24% and the number of such districts are 39 (128 police station areas) in 2022. Out of these 39, only 25 are in the category of most violence prone districts, as per the data.
