The Union home ministry has asked security agencies to chalk out a plan for an all-out offensive against Maoists in the “liberated zone” in Chhattisgarh’s Abujhmad forests that is now completely inaccessible to the security forces.

Ministry sources said the security agencies had at a recent meeting been asked to take the help of the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) to procure real-time images of Maoist strongholds inside the “liberated zone”.

The NTRO helps operate unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). An Intelligence Bureau (IB) official said that UAVs would be used for reconnaissance, and will take real-time pictures of the liberated zone.

UAVs have been used in the past to launch offensives against the Maoists and to keep an eye out for security forces conducting operations and area-domination exercises in rebel strongholds.

The Abujhmad forests are spread over 3,900sqkm in south Chattisgarh and are part of the Bastar Lok Sabha constituency.

According to an IB report, the rebels exercise complete control over the liberated zone and have built several camps where they provide arms training to recruits.

There is no civil administration or even basic infrastructure in the area.

The Maoists are said to have booby-trapped all entry points with landmines.

“The Maoists have set up several training camps in Abujhmad. They hold regular meetings with their cadres in the presence of their top-rung leaders and plan attacks on security forces,” a home ministry official said.

Twenty-two jawans were killed and 31 injured in a four-hour encounter in Chhattisgarh in April last year after an estimated 400 Maoists ambushed security personnel. This was the heaviest loss the security forces had suffered at the Maoists’ hands since April 2017, when the insurgents ambushed and killed 25 CRPF personnel near Burkapal in Sukma, Chhattisgarh. U

AVs had first been introduced in Chhattisgarh after the Maoists killed 76 security personnel in Dantewada in 2010.

The NTRO’s operations from the ground are conducted by air force personnel.

“The security forces have been asked to concentrate mainly on the liberated zone inside the Abujhmad forested area,” the IB official said.

A similar plan for an offensive had been drawn up two years ago but it could not be executed because of a lack of coordination among security forces and some other “internal issues”, the ministry official said.

The NTRO, set up on the recommendation of the Kargil Review Committee as a nodal agency for technical intelligence along the lines of the US National Security Agency, reports to the national security adviser.