Intelligence agencies have warned about Maoist intellectuals operating over 100 front organisations in the cities “in the guise of NGOs and civil rights organisations” to provide logistical support to the guerrillas in the jungles, Union home ministry officials have told The Telegraph.

The development comes just months after a call by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to root out “Naxalism”, whether “the ones with guns or the ones with pens”.

“Intelligence agencies have sounded an alert about more than 100 front organisations of the Maoists operating in several cities and towns across the country,” a ministry official said.

“These organisations, in the guise of NGOs and civil rights organisations, help recruit educated urban youths to the fold. Such front organisations are active in Delhi, Maharashtra, Bengal, Gujarat, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.”

Another ministry official said: “The main job of this urban network is to update the Maoists living in the jungles about what is happening in the cities and provide them with logistical support such as medicines, laptops, data cards and even arms and ammunition.”

Sources said the home ministry had last November directed the security agencies to launch a countrywide crackdown on the urban network of Maoist intellectuals and strategists.

A month earlier, Modi had hit out at “every form of Naxalism” while addressing the first brainstorming session of state home ministers and senior police officers.

“Every form of Naxalism — be it the ones with guns or the ones with pens — Naxals have to be uprooted to prevent them from misleading the youth of the country,” he had said.

Some civil rights groups and activists had then wondered whether the comments presaged a drive to silence dissenters protesting the abuse of State power — a group the Right-wing ecosystem habitually refers to as “urban Naxals”.

Over the past few years, some 16 writers, academics, rights activists and lawyers were arrested in the Elgaar Parishad-Maoist links case, with international analysts suggesting some of them were framed with fabricated “evidence” planted on their electronic devices.

Sources said the home ministry believed that the Maoists’ overground supporters in cities and towns were carrying out systematic propaganda against the State with the objective of triggering violence in the country.

“The ministry has asked security agencies to track the activities of the urban network of Maoist intellectuals and strategists, and gather enough evidence against them and the front organisations,” a security official attached to the home ministry said.

Last September, the home ministry had claimed a 39 per cent reduction in violence connected to Left-wing extremism between 2018 and 2022.

“Maoists are still very much active in Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand but are lying low following the Centre’s all-out offensive,” a home ministry official said.

He said a recent report had alerted the ministry about the presence of several Maoist leaders in core Naxal areas like Kolhan and the Khunti-Saraikela-Chaibasa trijunction in Jharkhand.

The Maoists, the official said, have been able to rebuild and strengthen their urban networks across the country.

An Intelligence Bureau report had sometime ago claimed the Maoists had procured a huge cache of arms in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh and the forests of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand.