THREE battalions of the BSF comprising more than 3,000 personnel will move across the border from Odisha to Chhattisgarh and an equal number of ITBP units will further move into the Naxal stronghold of Abujhmad as part of a strategy to intensify anti-Maoist operations in their last bastions, official sources said. The new operational blueprint is part of a plan under which Union Home Minister Amit Shah recently made a declaration that India was “on the verge of” eliminating Left Wing Extremism (LWE). “The last strike against LWE by forces such as the BSF, the CRPF and the ITBP is in the process. We are determined to end Naxalism in the country,” Shah said on December 1 in Hazaribag, Jharkhand while addressing BSF troops on their 59th raising day.

 

These forces are called as Central Armed Police Force (CAPFs). Sources in the security establishment told PTI that the Border Security Force (BSF) has been directed to create six new COBs or company operating bases in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur district by initially moving one of its battalion based in Odisha’s Malkangiri, just across the inter-state border. A BSF battalion has a strength of over 1,000 personnel. The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), which currently has about eight battalions located in Narayanpur, Rajnandgaon and Kondagaon districts of Chhattisgarh, has been asked to move one unit further inside the core area of Abujhmad. This is an about 4,000 sq km forest area in Narayanpur district and considered a stronghold of armed Naxal cadres. The uncharted Abhujmad or ‘madh’ forests are host to a population of about 35,000 people, mainly tribals, residing in around 237 villages.

 

The area, at present, has no permanent central or state police base and armed Maoist cadres are stated to be operating, training and moving here from across the Chhattisgarh-Odisha border in south Bastar region of the State. The Bastar region comprising districts like Dantewada, Sukma and Bijapur up to Narayanpur and Kondagaon and Kanker district further north is the last bastion and corridor where Maoists have some strength and can spring surprises against the security forces and the administration.