Zee Media Bureau/Sushmita Dutta
New Delhi: In a shocking revelation, the Home Ministry on Tuesday said that the Communist Party of India (Maoist) insurgents may be getting support from some foreign organisations located in Europe.
Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju today told the Lok Sabha that the possibility of some Naxal insurgents getting foreign funds cannot be ruled out, adding that mainly Germany, France, Holland and Italy are the nations which are involved in lending a helping hand to the said Maoists group.
He further said government is monitoring the situation and has taken up issue of Maoists` links with countries concerned at the diplomatic level.
In a written answer today, Rijiju told Lok Sabha, “The CPI (Maoist) party have close links with foreign Maoist organisations in Philippines and Turkey."
He added that left-wing extremism groups have participated in conferences and seminars conducted in Belgium and Germany.
However, replying to a question about foreign funding to Naxal groups in India, Rijiju added that there was no specific intelligence input to indicate that Maoists or Naxalites were getting external or foreign assistance.
He added the recovery of arms and ammunitions of foreign origin from Left Wing Extremists in different encounters is an indication of the fact that they are procuring weapons from different sources.
"Moreover, CPI (Maoists) clandestinely getting foreign funds cannot be ruled out. Inputs also indicate that some senior cadres of the Communist Party of the Philippines imparted training to cadres of CPI (Maoists) in 2005 and 2011," he said in the reply, PTI reported.
The CPI (Maoist), also known as `Naxalites`, was founded on September 2004, following the merger of two of India`s far-left outfits: the Communist Party of India-Marxist-Leninist (People’s War) and the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI). However, the beginning of the movement can be traced back to late 1967.
Koteshwar Rao, otherwise known as Kishenji was the Maoists` military leader who was shot dead in a gunbattle with security forces in a forest in West Midnapore district of West Bengal in November 2011.
Normally a regular communicator with the press, Kishenji was little heard of until January 2011, when he issued a statement saying he expected India to succumb to a Maoist revolution by 2025.
Earlier in June 2010, he reportedly had suffered temporary paralysis when a police bullet hit him in the knee.
In 2013, at least 17 people, including senior Congress leader Mahendra Karma, were killed and former union minister VC Shukla and 19 others injured when heavily-armed Maoists ambushed a convoy of party leaders inside a dense forest in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar district.
Over the years the Maoists have managed to launch a series of damaging attacks on Indian security forces.
In a worst-ever Maoist attack on Indian security forces, in April 2010, rebels ambush paramilitary troops in the dense jungles of central Chhattisgarh, killing at least 76 soldiers. While in 2007, Maoist rebels had killed 55 policemen in an attack on a remote police outpost in the state.
In 2009, rebels gained virtual control of Lalgarh district in West Bengal.
According to reports, for many months, rebels, supported by local villagers, had held hundreds of paramilitary forces at bay.
