Chhattisgarh to hire choppers to fight Maoists

By IANS

New Delhi : Worried about the escalating Maoist violence in Chhattisgarh, the ministry of home affairs Wednesday allowed state authorities to hire choppers to take on the rebels.


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"The Chhattisgarh government has been allowed to hire choppers from manufacturers Pawan Hans for use in Maoist affected areas. This will be mainly for evacuation of casualties, movement of security personnel and supplies," the ministry said in a press statement.

The statement added that the state government would share the helicopters with the Andhra Pradesh and Maharastra governments for optimum utilisation.

The expenditure incurred will be reimbursed under Security Related Expenditure Scheme (SRE), a non-plan scheme to supplement the efforts of the states to deal with Maoist violence effectively.

For long the ministry has been toying with the idea of pressing choppers for surveillance in Chhattisgarh, which has borne the brunt of Maoist violence in the last two years.

On March 15, Maoists attacked a police camp in Bijapur, 510 km south of state capital Raipur, and killed 49 policemen.

"Regular sorties on air may at least help us track down their movements and possible camps," said a ministry official.

A total of 74 policemen – 24 personnel of the Chhattisgarh Armed Forces (CAF) 9th battalion and 50 of the Special Police Officers (SPOs) – were present at the camp in Bijapur when the rebels ran over the camp. They also took away a huge cache of arms and explosives before setting the camp on fire.

Prior to this, the extremists had also claimed responsibility for the killing of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MP Sunil Mahato during Holi festivities on March 4 and followed it up in quick succession by killing Prakash, a Congress leader in Andhra Pradesh.

Last year, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand accounted for a whopping 1,025 of the 1,509 attacks that left 512 civilians and security personnel killed.

Till date, the government has deployed 33 paramilitary battalions on anti-Maoist duty and sanctioned 29 additional India Reserve battalions, besides setting aside Rs.3.71 billion under the police modernisation scheme for weaponry, telecommunication equipment and other infrastructure.

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