40,000 sq km under Maoist control, govt tells house panel

NEW DELHI: A day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described naxalism as the gravest internal security threat, a parliamentary panel was informed on Wednesday that the Red ultras were calling the shots in nearly 40,000 square kilometre area — mainly parts of the dense forest area in Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Jharkhand — where the government has virtually no control.

Earlier, home minister P Chidambaram, while addressing police chiefs in a conference on Monday, stated in detail the extent of the menace. He mentioned that over 2,000 police station areas in 223 districts in the affected states were partially or substantially affected by naxalism.

The bare facts about the menace also came up for discussion in the first meeting of Parliament’s Standing Committee on home affairs here on Wednesday.

Besides briefing the panel — headed by BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu — on naxalism, the home ministry officials also presented before them reports of the overall internal security situation in the country.

Earlier in the day, the home minister, while addressing the concluding session of the three-day DGs’ conference, asked the state police chiefs to quickly complete the ongoing Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and System (CCTNS) in order to increase coordination among various agencies.

The CCTNS project covers all states and Union Territories. The system will provide enhanced tools for investigation, crime prevention, law and order maintenance and other functions like traffic management and emergency response.