Forces closing in on Bastar’s last Maoist pockets

AHEAD OF CENTRE’S MARCH DEADLINE

- Prawesh Lama

There are fewer than 10-12 Maoist pockets in Sukma and Bijapur districts of Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region, where security forces are at work to set up camps and gain control of the areas ahead of the Centre’s March 31 deadline to eliminate Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) from the country, officials aware of the matter said.

Security personnel posted in Bastar said that with the joint teams of forces left to cover ground in sanitising the last 10-12 core areas of Maoists, for which the forces are working at full capacity with three months left for the March 31 deadline, many remaining top cadres of the banned outfit have fled the once infamous "Red Corridor” region and surrendered in other states or were killed in gunfights outside Chhattisgarh.