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Ex-IB chief: anti-Indian forces may use Maoists in NE as pawns

Naxal presence in the region has security complications, says P.C. Haldar

Maoist presence in a sensitive region like the Northeast has the potential of creating serious strategic security complications and the possibility of forces inimical to India using the outlaws as a pawn
would have to be factored in by the security establishment.
This was stated by former Intelligence Bureau Chief and presently a member of the National Security Advisory Board P.C. Haldar while delivering keynote address at a seminar on “Responding to Maoist Spread in India’s Northeast” organised by the Centre for Development and Peace Studies here on Monday.
“In the Northeast, the focus of the Maoists is on areas in upper Assam and a few pockets in the interior areas to set up its bases, particularly upper Assam and the adjoining areas — as they seemed attracted towards areas that allow an operational advantage due to jurisdictional divides.
Apart from being forested and remote like other traditional haunts of the Maoists elsewhere in the country, the locations in upper Assam provide a proximity to international border and traditional ingress-egress routes of armed groups of the region to [and from] their bases in Myanmar,” said Mr. Haldar, who is also the Centre’s interlocutor in the peace processes with a number of insurgent outfits in Assam including the United Liberation Front of Asom and two factions of the National Democratic Front of Boroland.

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