Over ground workers of the Left Wing Extremist groups are the ones who act as the backbone of the violent forces of the Naxalism. Their activity includes influencing young minds and raising funds for their violent comrades who actually carry out the dirty work, but that alone does not make their contribution in spreading left wing terror any less. According to sources from the Ministry of Home Affairs whose information is based on reports from the national security agencies, traces of activities of Urban Naxals have been found in 18 states of the country. Although, the BJP government has been successful in reducing instances of violence committed by Naxals in its 4 year rule but the activities of the urban Naxals has so far gone on mostly unchecked. Punjab and Gujarat are the two new states where urban Naxals have been found to be active despite no known prior influence of them in the state. The two states have reportedly also approached the centre for additional grants under security related expenditure to fight off the growing influence of urban Naxals in their states.
A senior official from the government said, “The ministry is also in the received demand from the two states that they should also be extended grants on the lines of security-related expenditure given to the Naxal violence-affected states.” The two states have been advised by the MHA and security agencies to regularly share intelligence of movement of Urban Naxals in their states with Multi-Agency Centre (MAC), which is a national intelligence sharing centre. Police forces from both Punjab and Gujarat have revealed that the urban activities of the Naxals are being controlled by various regional committees and sub-committees which are involved in organizing mass movements. These committees operate along the lines of directions issued by top most cadres of the LWE groups. The note written by the MHA says, “The mass organisations represent the link between the rural and urban areas. The main objective is the mobilisation of the masses, including the working class and the youth and formation of Tactical United Front by involving other like-minded organisations, by exploiting common issues.”
This is a dangerous direction in which the LWE groups seem to be heading. Their influence and activities in states like Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have been heavily curtailed owing to the efforts of the security forces. Probably this is the reason why these groups now want to have a pan-India presence in order to stay relevant and influential. The government has achieved tremendous success in anti-naxal operations and now it is trying to beat naxalism on the ideological front as well. The government is easily able to diminish naxal support base in stronghold areas by carrying out developmental work. However, raids and arrests are the only way of fighting the Urban naxals in metro cities. It seems that the government is going to be unforgiving and crackdown on urban naxals is going to continue.
The leftist-liberal cabal is already indulging in desperate propaganda against the government after several alleged urban naxals were arrested in connection with the Bhima-Koregaon violence. However, the government needs to do a lot more in order to further shock the movement which has stayed as an internal wound which has bled India from the inside for too long. The government is not yet done with it and is now planning a total crackdown on urban naxals in order to make sure that naxalism no longer enjoys a support base. While the government has been tremendously successful in its anti-naxal operations over the last four years, now it is upto it to raise the ante and take the fight to naxals beyond field operations as well.