'Violence only hurdle to hold talks with Naxals'

Making a fresh offer, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday said the government was willing to open talks with the Maoists provided they 'abjure' violence that, he said, was the only hurdle to hold the dialogue.

Chidambaram also said Naxalism cannot be bracketed with terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and insurgency in the North East and suggested that Maoists needed to be treated differently.

"If the Communist Party of India (Maoist) will make a statement and call a halt to violence, government would be willing to start a process through which the state government concerned and the Central government can hold talks with them on any issue that concerns them and the people they claim to represent," he said in a letter to former Lok Sabha speaker Rabi Ray.

Chidambaram was replying to a statement made by Ray and some eminent persons on the Maoist menace recently. "I sincerely will prevail upon the CPI-Maoist to abjure violence," he said in the letter, copies of which were sent to Justice Rajinder Sachar, Prof Rajni Kothari, Kuldip Nayyar, Aruna Rai and K G Kannabiran.

He said the only hurdle to holding talks with the CPI-Maoist is the violence that 'stalks the areas in which they operate.' He drew attention of these eminent persons to the statements made by various Maoist leaders especially Muppala Laxman Rao (Ganapathy) and Mallojula Koteshwar Rao (Kishenji), justifying violence and armed struggle.

Separately, Chidambaram is understood to have told the conference of top commanders of the defence services that while North East insurgents and terrorists in J&K were demanding secession from India, Naxals were different because they did not have this design.