How Centre is eliminating Naxals

By G Krishna Mohan Rao

At a major encounter on Thursday, March 20, 2025, morning, in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, more than 30 ‘Naxals’ were killed along with a jawan. In fact, this is the second major Naxal encounter in March 2025 in the Bastar region. With this, more than 115 Naxals, including senior leaders, were killed by the security forces in Chhattisgarh, since this January, according to sources. Last year 287 Maoist Naxals were neutralised in the Bastar Division.

Sources said that this is the first major operation after the March 3, 2025, surrender of Maoist commander Dinesh Modiyam, who called the shots in the Bastar region. As many as 30 Modiyam’s ex-comrades were killed in the operation in the first week of March. More operations are expected to take place, according to sources.

At the Thursday’s encounter , security forces had received intelligence about the presence of the Naxals in the forests under the jurisdiction of Gangaloor police station. According to sources in the Home Ministry, under a plan drawn up at North Block, the security forces have been moving deeper into the Naxal bastions of Bastar and setting up forward bases and camps as part of an area-domination exercise.

In other words, these forward bases are proving decisive in restricting the movements of Naxal and helping the security forces to carry out counter offensives. Sources said, additional reinforcements of 2500 personnel were sent to Chhattisgarh last month to keep up the momentum. With the result, Naxal strong hold areas are now shrinking in the Bastar region, which has become the epicentre of aNaxal activities.

Also read: Security forces eliminate 30 ‘naxalites’ in Chhattisgarh

Significantly, the Left Wing Extremism ( LWE) or Naxalism, which posed the biggest internal security challenge in India for the past 6 decades, is on the decline. When at its peak, the Naxal threat impacted 80 million people mainly tribals. It needs to be emphasised, that the Narendra Modi government gained the upper hand in the fight against Naxals, which by and large today is confined to the Bastar region where fierce battles are still on.

Sources said that in 2014, when the Modi government came to power, 126 districts in 10 States were classified as the most Naxal affected. In early 2025, this count is down to 12 districts, the majority being in Bastar and the remaining in neighbouring districts of Odisha, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Of late, Home Minister Amit Shah in his newspaper and TV interviews, repeatedly emphasised that by March 2026 the government will ensure that India will be free of the Naxal threat.

Began as the Naxalbari movement in the 1960s in Bengal, the Left-wing Extremism at one time, vertically divided India from Nepal to Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh . Popularly known as Red Corridor, this Naxal belt not only posed a major threat to Law and Order as well development of interior regions. Former Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh always use to maintain that Naxals are greatest internal security threat to the nation.

The Naxal challenge was complex at all levels. Though , 10 year rule of Mam Mohan Singh , addressed this issue by focusing on infrastructure in the interiors,but could not succeed fully. In 2014, when Modi government took charge, there were 10 states , which were partly as well as intensively , infested with Naxal activities. They include,Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chattisgarh,Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh,Maharashtra,Odisha, Telengana, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh.

It was pointed out by the Home Ministry that in the past 20 years, 2344 security personnel have lost their lives fighting Naxals. The civilian toll is also extremely high—6300 people have been killed in Naxal attacks in the last two decades. It is said that by and large, the Modi government, finally broke the stalemate in containing Naxalism with the following multi-pronged strategy:

• Forward Operating Bases called FOBs became lynchpins in containing the Naxal movement.
• The Home Ministry tried to ensure that arms supply was stopped to Naxals from various channels. So also money supply to Naxals, who collected money by extortion as well as other methods.
• A mix of anti-Naxal offensives and development initiatives like laying of Roads, and opening banks and schools were given top priority by the government as part of the overall strategy.
• Further, modern intelligence-gathering tools like Drones and satellite imaging were effectively used to track the movement of Naxals. Hundreds of police stations were established at strategic places. With the result, the old guerrilla tactics of the Naxals stood no chance against contemporary surveillance by security forces and they were systematically driven out of their bastions.
• Finally and significantly,a generous surrender policy was offered to Naxals by the government so that they could join the mainstream. Many Naxals accepted the offer. Home ministry indicated that almost 7500 Naxals have surrendered in the past 10 years.

*Senior journalist