New Delhi: Virtually declaring an all-out war against the Maoist menace, Union home minister Rajnath Singh stressed the need for greater use of technology, actionable intelligence, choking financial channels and adopting an aggressive strategy to target the top Maoist leadership.
Speaking at a conference of ten Naxal-infested states here on Monday in the wake of the recent killings of CRPF personnel, Mr Singh underlined the urgent need to set up a strategic unified command, saying unity of purpose was needed among all the affected states.
National security adviser Ajit Doval and top security and intelligence officials from the Centre and states also took part in the meeting, which decided to evolve a uniform strategy to take on the Maoists.
The home minister said he was confident that with a new strategy in place, the anti-Maoist operations will be more successful in future.
Choke Maoist funds: Rajnath
The states, Union home minister Rajnath Singh added, should play a bigger role in such operations and “take ownership”.
The meeting, sources said, discussed how the strategy could be recaliberated to make it more effective and to reduce casualties among security personnel.
Choking the Naxals’ financial resources was the “most basic mantra”, the home minister said, as resources play a major role in any war.
He also stressed the need for greater use of technology like trackers in weapons and biometrics in smart guns, which are some of the new tech to check the use of looted arms by the militants.
“It would be advisable to have trackers in weapons, as well as biometrics in smart gun triggers — as a tracker can locate a looted weapon wherever it is taken or used, while biometrics can make a smart gun useless for anyone other than the authorised user,” the minister added.
Referring to use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), the home minister said this should be further augmented and more such surveillance gear should be procured and given to the security forces. “We need to use high-resolution PTZ cameras, GPS tracking, hand-held thermal imaging, radar and satellite imaging,” he said. On intelligence-gathering, the minister said surrendered Naxals should be used “more effectively” to obtain information. “We have to bring aggression in our policy... We must focus on the concept of “Samadhan” — which means S-Smart Leadership, A-Aggressive Strategy, M-Motivation and Training, A-Actionable Intelligence, D-Dashboard Based KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and KRAs (Key Result Areas), H-Harnessing Technology, A-Action Plan for Each Theatre, N-No Access to Financing,” the home minister said.
