Odisha: Six districts free from Red influence, says DGP

BHUBANESWAR: Odisha Police on Monday informed that after the latest review of Left Wing Extremism situation in the State, about six districts were removed from the list of 19 Maoist affected districts as per the information shared with the Ministry of Home Affairs.“After the latest review of Left Wing Extremism situation in the State, we have removed six districts from the list of 19 Naxal affected districts. The six districts are Ganjam, Gajapati, Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj, Dhenkanal and Jajpur as in the last few years no Naxal violence was reported there,” Odisha DGP Dr RP Sharma told mediapersons on Monday.

“We have also added two districts in the list of Naxal affected districts of the State. Those are Angul and Boudh. Though no violence has taken place in Angul and Boudh, we received information about the movement of Maoists in these areas for which the two districts have been included in the Naxal affected list of the State,” the DGP said.

There are about 15 Naxal affected districts in Odisha. However, in 2017, Naxal activities were reported only in eight districts of the State, Dr Sharma said and added that they were also planning to redeploy security forces in the cut-off areas of Malkangiri district.Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba recently informed that 44 districts in the country were no longer under the influence of  Maoists or have negligible presence and most of the Left Wing Extremism  is now confined to only 30 worst-hit districts.

The Ministry of Home Affairs had categorised 106 districts in 10 States as Naxal affected. These districts are covered under the Security Related Expenditure (SRE) scheme for the purpose of reimbursement of security-related expenditure, including transportation, communication, hiring of vehicles, stipend to surrendered Maoists, construction of infrastructure for security forces, among others.