NEW DELHI -- A Maoist insurgency raging across at least nine states
is the chief internal security threat to India, even as traditional
conflicts in Kashmir and the northeast have ebbed, the country's top law
enforcement official said Monday.
Despite several high-profile attacks across the country last year,
including a triple bombing in the city of Mumbai, Home Minister
Palaniappan Chidambaram said there had been a decline in terror attacks
and casualties in 2011. Security forces broke up 21 terror cells and
arrested 64 people last year and the first three months of this year.
Mr. Chidambaram spoke to a meeting of India's chief ministers aimed at coordinating the country's anti-terror efforts.
Many of the state leaders have rejected a government proposal to set
up a national counterterror center as a power grab by the central
administration that infringes on their policing authority. The
government says it needs the center to implement a unified strategy.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who did not mention the controversy
over the center directly, warned the chief ministers that despite recent
success, ``this is a struggle in which we cannot relax.''
``Today, terrorist groups are nimble, more lethal than ever before and increasingly networked across frontiers,'' he said.
Mr. Chidambaram praised a huge improvement in security in the
disputed region of Kashmir, which both India and Pakistan claim as their
own, and in the northeast, where ethnic insurgents have been fighting
for decades.
However, he also warned that terror groups are continually trying to
infiltrate from abroad and have opened new routes into the country from
neighboring Nepal and Bangladesh.
In addition, the Maoists continue to threaten a wide belt of the
east, where they extort people, target those seen as government
sympathizers and attack security forces, he said.
The decline in casualties in that fight is gives a false sense of assurance, he said.
The government forces are suffering from a shortage of police
stations, men, vehicles, weapons and infrastructure in the fight against
the insurgents, Mr. Chidambaram said.
``There is more work to be done,'' he said.
In recent weeks, the insurgents kidnapped two Italian men and a state
lawmaker in the eastern state of Orissa demanding the release of dozens
of their imprisoned comrades. The Italians were freed after some
prisoners were released, but the lawmaker is presumed to still be a
hostage.
The rebels, who say they are inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader
Mao Zedong, are demanding land and jobs for impoverished tribal
communities and accuse police and government officials of colluding with
landlords and rich farmers to exploit the poor.