Prime Minister Narendra Modi celebrated Diwali on Sunday with security personnel in Chhattisgarh's Bastar region, at the CoBRA Operations Base in Karanpur.
It was the 13th consecutive Diwali he has spent with the security forces, and the first since the end of Naxalism in the region.
He paid tribute to fallen CRPF personnel at the camp memorial and met personnel of the CRPF, CoBRA, BSF, ITBP, SSB, state police, Bastar Fighters and women commandos.
"Because of your sacrifices we have put an end to the terror of Naxalism here," he told the personnel. He said he had come as a representative of the country's 140 crore citizens, and that the soldiers were like family to him.
Internal security as strong as border security
He said internal security was as important as border security. "When a nation's internal security is strong, external enemies cannot succeed," he said.
He attacked previous Congress governments, saying that from 2004 to 2013, every year more soldiers were martyred than Naxalites killed, and that those governments treated Naxalism as an incurable disease and left it unaddressed.
He recalled the 2010 Dantewada attacks, in which 76 CRPF personnel were killed in an encounter with Naxalites and 44 civilians lost their lives in another incident.
A year without a single jawan lost
For the first time in 47 years, the CRPF completed a year without losing a single jawan in operational duty. More than 1,000 security personnel sacrificed their lives in Chhattisgarh during the decades-long insurgency.
The government announced on 31 March 2026 that the country had been freed from Naxalism after the elimination of several senior leaders and cadres and the surrender of hundreds of others.
He warned that armed Naxals were gone but "dimagi Naxals", or mental Naxals, had infiltrated political parties, and called for identifying and defeating them.
His earlier Diwali celebrations with the forces took him to Kargil and Lepcha in the Himalayas, to Sir Creek, and aboard INS Vikrant.
