New Delhi: Union Home minister Amit Shah on Sunday rejected the ceasefire offer given by Maoists, saying if the extremists want to surrender and lay down arms, they are most welcome to do so and security forces would not fire a single bullet on them.
This is the first time that a top Central government functionary has reacted to the ceasefire offer given by the Naxals about a fortnight ago.
“Recently, to spread confusion, a letter was written stating that what has happened so far has been a mistake, that a ceasefire should be declared, and that we (Naxals) want to surrender. I want to say there will be no ceasefire. If you want to surrender, there is no need for a ceasefire. Lay down your arms, not a single bullet will be fired”, Shah said.
He said if the Naxals want to surrender, a red carpet welcome awaits them with a “lucrative” rehabilitation policy.
Addressing the valedictory session of a seminar on ‘Naxal Mukt Bharat’, Shah also hit out at Left parties for extending ideological support to the Left Wing Extremism and dismissed their arguments that lack of development led to the Maoist violence.
Shah asserted that the country will be free of Naxalism by March 31, 2026.
He remembered the martyrdom of thousands who died due to left-wing extremism from the 1960s onwards and said that with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the helm, a clear-cut long-term policy has been followed to tackle the three top internal security hotbeds of the nation: Jammu and Kashmir, the Northeast, and the left-wing extremism belt.
He added that though these areas had destabilised the country for decades, the Modi government changed from a dispersed, incident-driven approach to a cohesive and brutal one.
Tracking the timeline of the insurgency, Shah emphasised that Naxal violence was at its peak during the 1970s and 80s, ultimately coalescing into the CPI (Maoist) in 2004. Nearly 17 per percent of India’s territory and 12 crore individuals were covered by the so-called “Red Corridor” at one point. He compared this to Kashmir, with only 1 percent of the nation’s land under terrorism, and the Northeast, with 3.3 percent.
Shah stressed that since 2014, the government strategy has converged dialogue, security, and state coordination. Due to this, violence has dramatically reduced, with casualties among security personnel decreasing by 73 percent and civilian casualties by 74 percent from the last decade. In 2025 alone, 270 Naxals have been eliminated, 680 apprehended, and more than 1,200 surrendered, indicating the decline of the movement’s strength.