Pankaj asked: What are the different measures being taken by GoI to tackle smuggling of arms and ammunition by Naxals?

P.V. Ramana replies: The Union government, in association with the State government(s), monitors known routes and suspected persons to deal with the smuggling of arms and ammunition by the Naxals/Maoists.

Largely, the Naxals equip their arsenal by looting from the security forces, rather than take to smuggling. For instance, the Naxals had looted 528 weapons on February 06, 2004, in the Koraput armoury raid, in Odisha. Besides, on November 11, 2005, 280 weapons were looted from the Home Guards Training Centre in Giridih, Jharkhand. Further, in their largest ever loot, the Naxals had decamped with 1,200 weapons of various make and 2,00,000 (two lakh) rounds of ammunition form Nayagarh, Odisha, on February 15, 2008. These are besides snatching weapons from lone security force personnel and attacks on police stations.

Also, instances of pilferage of ammunition from Ordnance Factories have been reported, occasionally though, for instance in 2018 from Kolkata.

Posted on January 11, 2019