NEW DELHI: Amidst concerns over smuggling of arms through Tamil Nadu to Maoist rebels and the recent arms haul at Mahabubnagar in Andhra Pradesh, Union Home Secretary V.K. Duggal on Thursday held a meeting with top police officers of the two states.

The 45-minute meeting at North Block was attended by Tamil Nadu Director-General of Police D. Mukherjee and Inspector-General of Police (Intelligence), Andhra Pradesh, Aravinda Rao.

Mr. Mukherjee told reporters that naxal activity was absent or minimal in Tamil Nadu. Immediately after the arms haul in Andhra Pradesh on September 8, the Tamil Nadu police swung into action. "We have gathered intelligence inputs and are doing our best to curb the activity of arms manufacturing and smuggling."

Mr. Mukherjee is understood to have informed Mr. Duggal that the focus of the Tamil Nadu police was on increasing vigil on illegal arms manufacturing units.

The State has been demanding special funds for fighting the naxal menace which threatens to spill over from Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.

The Centre should reimburse security related expenditure (SRE) incurred to tackle the "spill-over."

Director-General of the Central Reserve Police Force J.K. Sinha, who was present at the meeting, said Maoists were setting up their own arms production units.

New strategy

He emphasised the need for working out a new strategy to tackle the latest threat of arms production units and smuggling of arms to Maoist cadres in Andhra Pradesh. Since Maoists mainly depend on looting arms and ammunition from the police, their own production units posed a new internal security threat.

The Andhra Pradesh last month seized 42 rocket launchers, 1,000 empty rocket shells and 35 improvised landmines from Mahabubnagar and Prakasam districts. Investigations revealed that the arms were moved from Tamil Nadu to Vijayawada and, from there, transported to the final destinations.

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