Inter-State Council not to hold talks with extremists

Inter-State Council has given up plans to conduct a dialogue with Left wing extremists, particularly CPI (Maoists), on giving up weapons and coming forward for a discussion.

The Inter-State Council standing committee meeting was held recently under the chairmanship of Union home minister Rajnath Singh in Delhi which was attended by Chief Ministers, Union ministers and other officials.

When this issue came up for discussion, Union home secretary Rajiv Gauba informed that there has been no response from these groups on eschewing violence. The home ministry had sent a copy of the discussions of the InterState Council’s standing committee meeting to all the states.

The meeting discussed about the recommendations of Punchhi Commission on internal security issues. Regarding the Maoists issue, the Commission had noted that there is growing understanding between the Centre and the states for handling this major internal security problem and the Commission felt that concerted efforts on socio-economic development in all these backward and tribal areas must continue.

The Commission had suggested that initiating a dialogue with the Maoists may be an alternative that can be considered. On this, the Union home ministry said that from time to time, the state governments had appealed to the Left wing extremists, especially the CPI (Maoists), the most violent group, to abjure violence and hold talks on any issue of concern to them. But no concrete results have emerged so far.

The Union home ministry said that the CPI (Maoists) party believes in overthrowing the present system of Parliamentary democracy through ‘protracted People’s war’ and wishes to capture political power in the country.