Erstwhile Naxal strongholds now have police camps, will end menace soon: Maharashtra DGP

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Police camps have reached areas that were once considered Naxal strongholds in Gadchiroli and soon the menace will be eradicated with the support of citizens, Maharashtra Director General of Police Rashmi Shukla said on Saturday.

The state's first woman DGP was speaking during her visit to Gardewada, an area once deeply affected by Left Wing Extremism, where a police post was set up recently.

"Due to Naxal activities, this area was away from the mainstream. However, the police department has removed their fear from the minds of the people by setting up a police post in Gardewada," she said.

The state government is reaching out to people from the region with various welfare schemes, she added.

"We will win the hearts of the people and with their support will eradicate the menace of Naxalism from here," Shukla asserted.

She was accompanied by Joint Commissioner (State Intelligence Department) Shirish Jain, Gadchiroli Special IG (Anti Naxal Operations) Sandip Patil, Gadchiroli Deputy Inspector General Ankit Goyal and Superintendent of Police Nilotpal.

Shukla was on January 4 appointed as Maharashtra's new Director General of Police (DGP).

Rashmi Shukla, an Indian Police Service officer of 1988 batch, was posted as director general of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) on deputation.

Mumbai Police Commissioner Vivek Phansalkar was holding additional charge as DGP Maharashtra after Maharashtra DGP Rajnish Seth retired on December 31.

In September last year, the Bombay High Court had quashed two FIRs registered against Rashmi Shukla for alleged illegal phone tapping, the PTI had earlier reported.

Two first information reports (FIRs) were filed against Shukla - one in Pune and another at Colaba in south Mumbai - for allegedly illegally tapping the phones of opposition leaders when Devendra Fadnavis was the chief minister of the state, as per the PTI.

The FIRs were registered when the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government was in power.

The alleged illegal phone tapping had taken place when Shukla headed the state intelligence department (SID), police earlier said.

Shukla's counsel had informed the Bombay High Court that in the Pune FIR, the police had submitted a C-Summary report (case is neither false nor true) and had sought to close the case and in the Mumbai case, the state government had refused to grant sanction to prosecute Shukla, according to the news agency's report.

A division bench of Justices A S Gadkari and Sharmila Deshmukh had accepted this and quashed the two FIRs, as per the PTI.

The Pune case was registered for allegedly recording phone calls of Congress leader Nana Patole, while the Mumbai case was for recording phone calls of Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Eknath Khadse, who was earlier with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), according to the PTI. (With inputs from PTI)