Incidents of violence by Left Wing Extremism (LWE) which were 501 in 2019 have reduced to 374 in 2024 , registering a reduction of 25 per cent, the government informed the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.
The total number of deaths (civilians and security forces) has also reduced by 26 per cent during this period from 202 in 2019 to 150 in 2024, Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai said in a written reply.
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He said to address the LWE menace holistically, the Centre approved ‘National Policy and Action Plan to address LWE’ in 2015. The policy envisages a multi-pronged strategy involving security-related measures, development interventions, ensuring rights and entitlements of local communities, among others.
”The resolute implementation of the policy has resulted in a consistent decline in violence and contraction of geographical spread. Incidents of violence by Left Wing Extremists (LWE) which reached its highest level of 1936 in 2010 have reduced to 374 in 2024 i.e. a reduction of 81 per cent. The total number of deaths (civilians + security forces) has also reduced by 85 per cent during this period from 1,005 deaths in 2010 to 150 in 2024,” the minister said.
He claimed that the rise in violence in years 2022 and 2023 was on account of increased counter-LWE operations as the security forces commenced entering in the core areas of CPI (Maoist).
There has also been a sharp decline in the number of districts affected by LWE. The LWE-affected districts have been reduced from 126 to 90 districts by April 2018, further to 70 by July 2021 and then to 38 by April 2024.
The Centre, he said, also assists the LWE affected states for capacity-building by providing central armed police battalions, training and funds for modernization of state police forces, equipment and arms, sharing of intelligence, construction of fortified police stations, among others.
