From tracking the movement of security teams out on patrol with satellite-enabled navigation devices and ensuring communication through satellite phones, to opening new security camps in the so-called liberated zones in the Bastar division of Chhattisgarh, the State Police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) followed a clear strategy to declare the 42,000 sq. km area “Maoist-free” by March 31, a deadline set by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on August 24, 2024.
The number of districts affected by left-wing extremism, often referred to as the red corridor, has shrunk from 126 districts across Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh in 2014 to just two districts — Bijapur and Sukma (in Chhattisgarh) — in 2026. In 2005 the number of affected districts stood at around 230. Many districts were reorganised in the following years.
Bihar, Maharashtra (barring one district), Jharkhand, and Odisha had already been declared free of Maoist activities before 2024, Home Minister Amit Shah informed the Lok Sabha on March 30. Bastar was one of the regions worst affected by left-wing extremism.
Barring one, entire top leadership of Maoists wiped out, Amit Shah tells Lok Sabha
