Govt Of India Willing To Hold Talks With Left Wing Extremists : MoS Home

05 May, New Delhi

The government today said it was willing to hold talks with Left Wing Extremists (LWEs) provided they gave up violence and expressed faith in democracy.

It also said there were no specific intelligence inputs to indicate that LWEs were getting financial assistance from foreign countries but information was available that the groups, particularly CPI (Maoist), were extorting levies from various sources including mining mafia groups in LWE affected states. Several reports have said in the past that ammunition recovered from a site of encounter with LWEs had Chinese markings.

”The central government is willing to consider any offer of talks from LWEs provided the latter abjure violence and express faith in democracy,” Minister of State for Home H P Chaudhary said in a statement in Lok Sabha.

The Minister said the Centre had asked state governments to establish special anti-extortion and anti-money laundering cells to prevent nexus between illegal mining, forest contractors, transporters and the extremists.

Twenty one state governments had constituted Task Forces for checking illegal mining, he said.

The Minister said a combination of calibrated police action, focussed development efforts and improvement in governance were the effective instrumentalities to combat LWE insurgency in the long term