Zero-tolerance against violence led to lowest deaths in 40 years: Amit Shah

New Delhi, Oct 6: Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation, Amit Shah Friday said that the government’s zero tolerance against violence had in the year 2022 brought the lowest number of deaths in the last 40 years while the government had doubled expenditure on security in the last nine years.

An official spokesman in a statement issued to the Press Information Bureau (PIB) here said that chairing a review meeting on Left Wing Extremism in New Delhi along with the Chief Ministers and Deputy Chief Ministers and other concerned officials of Left Wing Extremism affected states, the Union Home Minister said, “As a result of the government’s zero-tolerance policy, the lowest level of violence and deaths in last four decades was recorded in the year 2022.”

He said that in the last nine years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government increased the Security Related Expenditure (SRE) by more than double in comparison to the earlier period.

Shah said that under the leadership of PM Modi, success had been achieved in curbing leftist extremism in the last few years and now this fight had reached a decisive phase.

He said that with the determination of PM Modi and the cooperation of all the states affected by Left Wing Extremism, major successes had been achieved against it in 2022 and 2023.

The Union Home Minister said that this was the year of taking a resolution to eliminate Left Wing Extremism in the next 2 years.

He said that vacuum areas had been shrinking since 2019, and 195 new camps of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) had been established while 44 more new camps would be established.

Shah said that the deployment of CAPFs against Left Wing Extremism, rationalisation of development, and setting up camps in vacuum areas were the priorities of the Modi government.

He said that there was a need to maintain constant surveillance in the areas liberated from Left Wing Extremism so that this problem does not revive there again.

The Union Minister said that there was also a need to monitor that left-wing extremists from areas where this problem had been eliminated do not take shelter in other states.

He said that the Modi government had adopted a policy of zero tolerance against left-wing extremism since 2014.

“There has been a decline of more than 52 percent in Left Wing Extremism related violence, 69 percent in deaths, 72 percent in security forces deaths, and 68 percent in civilian deaths between 2014 and 2023 compared to the period from 2005 to 2014,” Shah said.

He said that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) were working closely with all state agencies to attack the financing of Left Wing Extremism.

The Union Home Minister said that all the affected states need to make efforts by forming a joint team of civil and Police administration to dismantle the network of financial support of Left Wing Extremism.

He said that the Modi government had increased the ex-gratia amount for victims of left-wing extremism from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 20 lakh in 2017, and now it has been further increased to Rs 40 lakh.

Shah said that the Modi government was taking several steps to speed up the development in Left Wing Extremism-affected states.

He said that special attention was being given to areas like road construction, telecommunication, financial inclusion, skill development, and education.

The Union Home Minister said that the Centre had launched more than 14,000 projects under the Special Central Assistance (SCA) scheme to accelerate development in the districts most affected by Left Wing Extremism.

He said that more than 80 percent of these projects had been completed and Rs 3296 crore had been released to Left Wing Extremism-affected states under the scheme.

Shah said that under the Special Infrastructure Scheme (SIS), projects worth Rs 992 crore had been sanctioned for the construction of fortified police stations, strengthening of state intelligence branches and special forces of Left Wing Extremism-affected states.

Union Ministers, National Security Advisor, Union Home Secretary, Director Generals of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), Secretaries to the Central Government, Chief Secretaries of states, and Director Generals of Police also attended the meeting.