Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - HT Navi Mumbai Live
Modi: Naxalism with pen or gun must be uprooted
NEW DELHI: All forms of Naxalism, whether gun-toting or pen wielding, need to be defeated to ensure that young people are not mislead, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday, laying out an architecture of internal security for state governments to follow.
Speaking at a meeting of home ministers of states and top police and security officials via video-conferencing, Modi said people who were trying to divide the society were not only getting international help but also sometimes spoke the language of the law and Constitution.
“Every form of Naxalism, be it the one with guns or the one with pens, have to be uprooted to prevent them from misleading the youth of the country,” the PM said.
Such forces, Modi added, are expanding their intellectual sphere to influence the minds of coming generations. “For the sake of the unity and integrity of the nation and with the inspiration of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, we cannot allow any such forces to flourish in our country. Such forces get significant help internationally,” he added.
He highlighted that in the last eight years, the number of Naxal-affected districts in the country had decreased significantly. At the same conference in Surajkund, Haryana, home minister Amit Shah had said on Thursday that incidents of violence in Maoist-affected states dipped by 77% and deaths reduced by more than 85%.
Reiterating the need to obliterate the ground network of terrorism, the Prime Minister warned against people who are “distorting” mindset of the coming generations. “By tossing emotional things out of proportion, they can create a rift, create disintegration in many parts of the society,” he said.
“We should not allow such things to run in the country... But you have to do it wisely... Such expertise will also have to be prepared in our fighting forces. If any incident has happened in any state, then our top experts should be sent there for study... We must try our best to learn. And people who are in this kind of world, they get a lot of help from international level too and they are smart in this... Speaking in the language of such a big constitution and law, the tendency does something else...,” he added.
Earlier this month, PM Modi had warned the people of Gujarat against “Urban Naxals who have taken up the task of destroying the country”, making a veiled attack on the Opposition parties.
Home ministry data reveals that incidents of violence in left wing extremism (LWE) affected areas have decreased from their highest level of 2,258 in 2009 to 509 in 2021. The number of deaths has dipped from 1,005 in 2010 to 147 in 2021.
In recent years, the government has also moved to prosecute a number of cases involving alleged Maoist conspiracies. Prominent among them is the 2018 Bhima Koregaon case, related to the violence that broke out in Maharashtra’s Bhima Koregaon village during the bicentennial celebration of a
British-era war. Several left-leaning academics and activists are currently charged under antiterror laws in the case.
Speaking about fake news, PM Modi said that one should be careful about what information one consumes on social media. He said a single piece of fake news held the potential to snowball into a matter of national concern.
“One should think 10 times before forwarding any information and verify it before believing it. Every platform has tools to verify any information. If you browse through different sources, you will get a new version of it,”.
Modi lamented the losses that India had to face due to fake news about reservation in the past. “We have to come up with technological advancement to prevent the spreading of fake news,” he said.