Polls: Chhattisgarh Police gear up to tackle Naxal threat

Raipur: Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, Chhattisgarh Police have started chalking out strategies in coordination with the adjoining states to tackle Maoist threats in inter-state border areas, officials said on Saturday.

Top police officials of the Bastar region, including the Inspector General, SP and ASPs, held a high-level meeting with their Odisha counterparts yesterday and drafted a plan to take on the rebels in run-up to the election and on the voting days, they said.

On the direction of Election Commission a meeting was held with police officials of Odisha for a well-coordinated effort to ensure peaceful polling in the Naxal-hit regions, Bastar Superintendent of Police Ajay Yadav told PTI.

Several districts of south Chhattisgarh like Bastar, Kondagaon and Sukma have links with the Naxal-hit districts of Koraput and Malkangiri in Odisha in terms of movement of cadres, arms and ammunition. A coordination is necessary to curb the activity of Maoist cadres, he said.

"We have mutually (police officials of both states) identified some sensitive pockets in the inter-state border regions where there is a need to focus more," the SP said. "There are several areas on both sides where mobile check posts require coordinated support from security personnel of the two States," he said. Insurgency-hit Bastar and adjoining constituencies like Koraput, Nabrangpur (Odisha) and Gadchiroli, Chimur and Chandrapur (Maharashtra) will go to the polls on April 10.

Naxals routinely give election boycott calls and often target political workers, leaders and polling agents during the campaigning and on the day of voting.