By IANS,
Raipur : Tribal people should put up a united face to fight rising Maoist militancy in Chhattisgarh, Bharatiya Janata Party Rajya Saba MP and tribal leader Nand Kumar Sai said Monday.
“The tribal community in Chhattisgarh mainly in mineral-rich Bastar is divided into various sections. If they get united and put up a united face against Maoists, the long-drawn insurgency problem can be tackled easily,” Sai told reporters at Jagdalpur, headquarters of Bastar region.
The sprawling 40,000 sq km Bastar region is known as a nerve centre of Maoist militancy in India since late 1980s where hundreds of tribal people were killed and thousands were driven out from their ancestral villages in past one decade due to rising Maoist insurgency.
Sai contended that Maoists active in Bastar were from outside the state but had managed to brainwash a section of innocent local tribals in Bastar and risked their life by using them as a shield to attack police and destroy government property.
He admitted that majority of tribal population in Bastar was caught in a fight between security forces and Maoists but hoped that insurgency problem would be tackled in coming up years which was must for development of decade-old poverty-hit Bastar region.