Maoists trying to gather support in cities: Rajnath
LUCKNOW: Union home minister Rajnath Singh said on Saturday that Maoist rebels, who have hitherto operated from rural and remote areas, have entered the cities because of a crackdown by the central government and are now trying to influence public opinion and spread their ideology in urban India.
“From 126 districts earlier, Naxalite activities have now been restricted to just 10-12 districts because of the action taken by us. But now they [the Maoists] are adopting a new strategy. They have come to the cities and are trying to influence people,” Singh said at the Shikhar Samagam event organised in Lucknow by Hindi daily, Hindustan, a sister publication of HT.
“I have received this information through intelligence agencies,” Singh said.
The arrest of prominent rights activists this week — P Varavara Rao in Hyderabad, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira in Mumbai, Sudha Bharadwaj in Faridabad and Gautam Navalakha in Delhi — led to the coinage of the term ‘urban naxals,’ as Maoists are known in India after the Bengal village where a rebellion broke out in the ’60s.
The home minister justified the arrest of the five in connection with the January 1 violence in Bhima Koregaon.
“Such arrests have been made before. The charges are serious, like conspiracy to destabilise the government, ideology to promote violence. But now the matter is before the Supreme Court and it will take a decision ,” Singh said.
When asked about government attempts to control social media, especially when it was the Bharatiya Janata Party that had made maximum use of it to come to power in 2014, Singh said, “We did not win because of social media but because of the work (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi did in Gujarat. We are not against social media, but our responsibility is to stop fake news, pornography, etc. How do we allow children to see such things?”