NEW DELHI : The Government on Friday admitted that naxalite violence was on the rise this year in Chhattisgarh but claimed that the situation in 12 other affected States was by and large under control.

Briefing newspersons after chairing a day-long meeting of the Coordination Centre here, Union Home Secretary V. K. Duggal said the situation could worsen if steps were not taken on the socio-economic and security fronts.

Compared to 475 violent incidents in the first quarter of last year, there were only 391 this year, though the number of casualties went up from 114 to 157. The number of security personnel killed by March 30 is 47 as against 45 during the same period last year. "There have been more civilian casualties, the intensity was also higher," Mr. Duggal said.

If Chhattisgarh were excluded, the number of incidents and casualties would come down by at least half.

In Chhattisgarh, which bore the brunt of naxalite attacks in the first quarter of this year, 162 incidents were reported compared to 97 in the same period last year. "In this year's incidents, there were 105 casualties, including 27 of security personnel." Last year during the same period, three civilians and six security personnel were killed.In Chhattisgarh, naxalites vent their ire on `Salwa Judum' campaign activists. Mr. Duggal said local resistance groups would be trained in self-defence and given police protection. Their role in containing naxal violence was discussed at the meeting.

There was a consensus that such groups were useful. However, it should be ensured that local resistance was encouraged in areas effectively dominated by security forces so that the people there did not become vulnerable to attacks.

Four-pronged strategy

The meeting, attended by the police chiefs and the Chief Secretaries of 13 affected States and a number of Central Ministries, also discussed the recent naxal attacks on railway property, including the detention of a passenger train in Latehar in Jharkhand on March 13.

A four-pronged strategy was discussed to strengthen the Railway Protection Force, the Government Railway Police, the State police and intelligence agencies.

To a query on strengthening the police force, Mr. Duggal said that as a first step, all States were asked to fill up vacancies, which often ran into a few thousands. Bihar was making efforts to fill 17,000 vacancies.

Jharkhand recently recruited 11,000 constables and still 1,000 vacancies remained.

The number of vacancies in Andhra Pradesh was about 6,000.

Scheme to be extended

The meeting decided to extend the scheme of Security Related Expenditure (SRE) for naxal areas by another five years. For this, Rs. 250 crore has been earmarked.

The States were asked to speed up implementation of land reforms. Another area of concern was streamlining delivery mechanisms for implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme, Bharat Nirman, Backward Districts Initiative and the Prime Minister's Rural Roads Programme.

PM to address meeting

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil are scheduled to address a meeting here of the Standing Committee of Chief Ministers to control naxal menace on April 13.

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