Security forces have established several forward bases in the remote Maoist-hit areas of Chhattisgarh as part of its strategy to strike deep into the rebel strongholds, sources in the Union home ministry saidon Monday.

“These forward bases have been set up as part of counter-offensive operations against Maoists. The bases will further help security forces in intensifying anti-Maoist operations,” said a home ministry official, adding that the bases have been established mostly in Chhattisgrah’s Bastar and Dantewada districts.

The bases act as launch pads for security forces, including the CRPF and state police units, to carry out specific and intelligence-based anti-Maoist operations in core areas, the official said.

Bastar in Chhattisgarh, the state worst affected by Left-wing extremism, is the axis of the security offensive against insurgents. Seven districts of Chhattisgarh — Bastar, Bijapur, Narayanpur, Kanker, Summa, Dantewada and Kondagaon — are the worst affected.

Maoists have suffered major setbacks this year with nearly 200 deaths reported in Chhattisgarh alone amid the ongoing counter-offensive operations launched by security forces in the rebel strongholds across the country.

Sources in the security agencies said Maoist deaths this year in the country were so far the highest since 2009 when 154 rebels were killed. In one of the biggest anti-Maoist operations in October, security forces had gunned down 31 Maoists along the border of the Narayanpur and Dantewada districts of Chhattisgarh.

Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Telangana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh are Maoist-affected states.

Sources in the home ministry said that Left-wing extremism had come down by 72 per cent while there was an 86 per cent decline in deaths in 2023 compared to 2010.

The Centre has taken steps, including giving impetus to road and mobile connectivity, to take development schemes to the remotest areas of the affected states and provide all possible assistance to the governments of Maoist-affected states in fighting the menace, the home ministry official said.

A total of 14,400km of roads has been constructed and nearly 6,000 mobile towers installed in such areas so far, the official added.

Earlier, a fact-finding team of a civil rights group had claimed that Adivasi communities in the tribal belt of Bastar in Chhattisgarh were facing brutal repression and harassment by security forces and accused the Centre of launching a crackdown on them on the pretext of fighting Maoists.

The rights group had also flagged how security forces illegally set up a large number of camps by forcibly grabbing the land of tribals in the Maoist belt in the name of “area domination”.

The team found rampant human rights violations by security forces in the vicinity of camps as tribals were not “allowed to move freely and even the weekly market, which is the lifeline of the local communities, and the regular purchases are subject to monitoring and under police control”.