Guwahati: Days after Union Home Minister P Chidambaram’s expressed concern over left-wing insurgency in Assam, state police chief Jayanta Narayan Choudhury on Tuesday admitted that Maoist activities have been reported from at least seven districts.
“We have reports of Maoist activities from seven Upper Assam districts so far including Golaghat, Sivsagar, Tinsukia, Lakhimpur and Dibrugarh,” said Choudhury.
The DGP, however, said that the red rebels are not active in the entire district but in some pockets.
There are some areas under about 22 police stations in these districts where the red rebels are active and trying to garner public support, he said adding that these police stations have been put on alert to keep a tab on their movements.
Chidambaram on Sunday had met Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi in Guwahati and reviewed the law and order situation. Growing Maoists activity remained one of the key topics of discussion.
Meanwhile, another senior police official said that the Maoists have also established three command centres – near the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh, Assam-Nagaland and in Assam-West Bengal borders.
“At present, the Maoists rebels have targeted motivating people in the districts of Upper Assam and gradually would shift to other districts as well,” said the official, adding that there are even reports that senior Maoist leaders are visiting the state to give arms training to the selected new recruits.
The rebels have also been sending some of the newly recruited cadres to some central Indian states for training, he said.
“As the militants outfits of various communities of Assam like the adivasis, tea tribes and others are coming into the mainstream, there is a vacuum here and a section of the people will give in to the allurement of the Maoists,” he said.
Former Union Home Secretary, GK Pillai, who had recently visited the state, also expressed concern over the growing activities of the red rebels in Assam and he had appealed to all the political parties to go to the grassroots and counter the propaganda spread by the Maoists.