Top police officers of Naxal-affected states discuss measures to tackle Maoist menace

Top police officers of seven Left Wing Extremism (LWE)-affected states have discussed a wide range of issues to improve inter-state coordination for effectively tackling the Maoist menace, an official said.

Officers from Andhra Pradesh, Telengana, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha participated in the inter-state co-ordination meeting of the LWE-hit states held in Bhubaneswar yesterday.

The officers discussed coordination in deployment of security forces across the border, joint/coordinated anti-LWE operations in the inter-state border areas and intelligence sharing, Odisha DGP R P Sharma told reporters after the meeting.

The officers suggested further synchronizing of inter-state coordination on LWE activities, a senior official said.

For the first time, such a meeting was held in Odisha, the DGP said.

The meeting was held under the chairmanship of K Vijaya Kumar, senior security advisor, Ministry of Home Affairs.

A B Venkateswar Rao, ADGP (Intelligence) Andhra Pradesh, Mahendra Kumar Reddy, DGP Telengana, DM Awasti, Spl DGP (operation), Chhattisgarh, Rajiv Mishra, IGP Western Zone, West Bengal, Ashok Raj, ADGP (L&O), Bihar, RK Mallick, ADGP, Jharkhand, Veenita Sharma, joint director, SIB, Bhubaneswar attended the meeting.

Arun Kumar, Special DGP, BSF, was also present at the meeting.

Kumar expressed his satisfaction over anti-Maoist operations in Odisha and praised the SPs of the LWE-hit districts of the state.