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Political Notes

	December 31, 2007

More India Reserve battalions for anti-Naxal operations



The Centre is planning to raise 35 new India Reserve batta¬lions for anti-Naxal operations. The battalions will have 35,000 personnel. A large number of these battalions are likely to be used in states like Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. The Union Home Ministry, which has received requests from several states, is expected to take a final decision soon.



As many as 26 IR battalions have already been sanctioned for Naxal-affected states. These include six battalions for Andhra Pradesh, three each for Jharkhand, Bihar and Orissa, four for Chhattisgarh, two each for Maharashtra and West Bengal and one each for Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka. The Centre bears the cost of raising these battalions, the thinking being that these forces would ease the pressure on Central forces like the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).



Chhattisgarh currently has 13 battalions of Central forces but the state Government claims this is not enough to take on the Naxalites, particularly in the 10,000-square km Abu Jumar area where the militants are well entrenched.



The Central forces and state police had to be trained in jungle warfare to succeed against the Naxalites, Chief Minister Raman Singh pointed out at last week’s meeting on internal secur¬ity chaired by the Prime Minister.



Singh also called for more Central forces, arguing that they were needed not just for anti-Naxal operations but also to pro¬vide security during construction of roads and other development projects.



The Centre is also examining a proposal to carve out a specialised team from within the CRPF and other Central forces for anti-Naxal operations. Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil has agreed to consider training the CRPF and other Central forces for specialised duties.



The other area of concern for the Union Home Ministry is the high level of vacancies in state police forces. The total figure has been in the range of 1,00,000 for several years now. Patil, in fact, pointed out at the conference that the violence level in states was proportional to the vacancies in police forces.





Two LeT men shot dead in Lucknow



The Special Task Force of the Uttar Pradesh police on Sun¬day, Dec. 23, shot dead two suspected Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists in an encounter on Dewa Road in Lucknow.



Talking to journalists, Brij Lal, Additional Director-Gener¬al of Police, Law and Order and STF, said efforts were on to identify them.



Lal said the two had planned a big terror attack in the State capital. A map with notings in Urdu recovered from them seemed to be that of Chief Minister Mayawati’s residence. Asked whether there was a threat perception to Mayawati, he said investigations were on.



Two AK-47 rifles, a huge quantity of AK-47 cartridges, 10 hand grenades, a fuse, a detonator and a suicide belt were recov¬ered from the car in which the two were travelling when the encounter took place. Lal said the terrorists were “fidayeen” and had entered Uttar Pradesh from Nepal. The encounter took place near the Central Food Technological Research Centre on Dewa Road, about 18 km from Lucknow.





Terrorist behind UP, J&K blasts arrested



Altab Aslam, a terrorist belonging to the Hizbul Mujadhi¬deen, was arrested on Dec. 29 from a hideout in the Baranager area in North 24 parganas, near Kolkata. He was allegedly in¬volved in many bomb blast incidents and several other subversive activities in Jammu and Kashmir, New Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and other states.



The Uttar Pradesh police was chasing him after the recent bomb blast incident at Lucknow and following a tip-off, both the West Bengal police and the UP police jointly raided a criminal den at Baranagar on Dec. 29 from where, Altab was arrested. Some sophisticated weapons and incriminating documents were also seized from him.



Over 40 pc voting in Ballia byelection



Over 40 per cent of the electorate cast their votes in the Ballia Lok Sabha by-poll on Saturday, Dec. 29, with no untoward incident being reported from anywhere in the constituency.



There were 249 hyper-sensitive and 221 sensitive polling booths in the constituency and elaborate security arrangements were made for a free and fair election.



There are about 15,21,916 voters in this prestigious Lok Sabha constituency in which 16 candidates, including the BSP’s Vinay Shankar Tiwari and the Samajwadi Party’s Neeraj Shekhar, son of former Prime Minister Chandrashekhar, contested the elec¬tion.



While the Congress fielded Rajiv Upadhyay, Virendra Singh Mast was the BJP’s candidate for the seat.



SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav and BSP chief Mayawati along with her close aide Satish Chandra Mishra had campaigned for the by-poll.