Shah chairs LWE review meet in Chhattisgarh: Union Home Secretary, IB chief among those present

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday chaired a high-level security review meeting in Chhattisgarh’s capital Raipur on Left-Wing Extremism (LWE), the move coming weeks ahead of the Centre’s March 31 deadline to eliminate the Maoist insurgency from the country.

The meeting held at a hotel in Nava Raipur Atal Nagar was attended by Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai, Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sharma, Union Home Secretary, Director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and Special Secretary (Internal Security) in the Ministry of Home Affairs, the official said.

The directors general of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and National Investigation Agency (NIA) as well as Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Telangana, along with several senior officers, were also present, he added.

Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region, comprising seven districts, shares borders with Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Odisha, and has long been considered the strongest bastion of Maoists. However, the region has witnessed intensified anti-Maoist operations over the past few years, considerably weakening the extremist movement.

Since January 2024, more than 500 Maoists, including top cadres such as CPI (Maoist) general secretary Nambala Keshava Rao alias Basavaraju, have been killed in encounters in Chhattisgarh, while around 1,900 Maoists were arrested and over 2,500 surrendered during the same period in the State, as per police.