Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday claimed as many as 12,000 people had lost their lives to Maoist attacks over the past 20 years. Singh, who will chair a meeting with the chief ministers of 10 Maoist-affected states, said at a pre-meeting press conference that efforts to throttle development at gunpoint would not be successful. He added that the foundational principle of the government’s strategy to deal with “left-wing extremism” – called Samadhan – is financially choking the Maoists.

Singh also said the Maoists could not be dealt with only by force but by long-term and short-term solutions. “Should we react only after the attack? We should be proactive. We should have aggression in our thoughts, development, security, infrastructure development,” he said, while talking to the media. He added that the whole country was angry about the Sukma attack in which 25 CRPF jawans were killed, The Indian Express reported.

The 10 states that will participate in the meeting with Singh are: Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Apart from the chief ministers, the district magistrates and superintendents of police of 35 of the worst-hit districts are also expected to be part of the meeting, along with the heads of paramilitary forces and intelligence agencies.