Thursday, March 16 2006 17:58 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The rise in the number of civilian and police killings by naxalites and the situation in Jammu and Kashmir are the main problems areas for the Union Home Ministry, according to its annual report on Internal Security for 2005-06.

Naxalism continued to be a big problem for the ministry as also killings of police personnel which showed a sharp increase of 53 per cent and civilian casualities which went up by 11 per cent as compared to 2004, the report said.

In 2005, there were 1,594 incidents of violence as compared to 1,533 in 2004. As many as 516 civilians were killed in the year as compared to 466 while 153 policemen lost their lives as against 100 in 2004. The casualties of naxalites also increased from 87 in 2004 to 223.

"Naxalites continued to focus on fresh recruitment and militarisation of their cadres. Training camps to impart training in arms and explosives handling to fresh and old cadres are being mainly held in Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh," the report said.

As many as 76 districts in the nine states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Orissa, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal were "badly affected" by naxal violence though in a varying degree.

It said available reports indicated continued fraternal and logistic links between Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) and naxalite groups especially in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.