Atrocities prompt tribal people to take up arms, a parliamentarian told the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday with home minister Amit Shah in attendance.

“I would like to tell you that when a son is killed in front of his father and a woman is raped in front of her husband, extremism is born,” Samajwadi Party member Vishambhar Prasad Nishad said.

He also alleged that the police, revenue officials and timber mafia often forcibly grab tribal land.

“Recently there have been reports that the police killed three children among 13 people. I want to ask the government whether fast-track courts would be set up in Naxalite-affected districts to give justice to the tribal people,” Nishad asked during Question Hour.

Junior home minister G. Kishan Reddy avoided a direct answer. He said the state governments had given 16 lakh land pattas to tribal people and that the government was not in favour of violence.

House Chairperson M. Venkaiah Naidu disapproved of the comment that atrocities lead to Maoist violence. “I do not agree with these arguments and (the use of) this forum to defend the Naxalites,” he said.

In his second supplementary question, Nishad asked how much money the government had spent on the development of tribal populations and how much on the security forces.

Reddy provided details of developmental projects such as the establishment of road connectivity, Kendriya and Navodaya Vidyalayas, banks, ATMs and post offices. He did not mention the spending on the security forces.

Nishad complained that his question had not been correctly answered. Shah defended his junior, saying he had answered the question on development projects, as asked by the member. A dissatisfied Nishad staged a brief walkout.

In his written reply, Reddy said the Centre had approved a national policy and action plan in 2015 to address Left-wing extremism, involving a multi-pronged strategy of security measures, development and the protection and facilitation of the local communities’ rights and entitlements.

Maoist violence between May 2014 and April 2019 had been 43 per cent lower than that during the preceding five-year period, Reddy said. He claimed the trend was continuing in 2019.