The US state department has said on Sunday that the leftist extremist groups are “very active” in wide areas of impoverished rural eastern & Central India. The Maoists also operate in parts of southern India. It said hundreds of people were killed in conflicts between the government & various Leftist extremist groups, such as Naxalites & the Communist Party of India (Maoists) & also in internecine war.

US State department said in his latest report,”The Government of India is very concerned over the threat from Leftist extremist groups to internal stability & democratic culture. The report mentioned that there were at least 971 Naxalite attacks in the first seven months of 2007 which, it said, was approximately equal to that of the entire previous year.

The report said that the Leftist extremists are highly active across a wide swath of India, including the states of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Uttarakhand & West Bengal. They were also active in some areas of Orissa, Maharashtra & Karnataka.