Agartala, Oct 19 : Maoists are not only affecting development in the states they dominate but are also making an impact in other states, Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar said Monday.

"Maoist rebels have been upsetting development in Chattisgarh, Bihar, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. Their (Maoists') violent activities are indirectly also disturbing other neighbouring and smaller states," Sarkar said while addressing a meeting of security personnel here.

"Centre and the states concerned should be more proactive to deal with the Maoist activities," Sarkar said.

The chief minister said the most important camps of insurgent outfits of Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Meghalaya were in Bangladesh and earlier in Myanmar and Bhutan too. "Though now the number of such camps has come down, but we cannot say for sure that these camps have been demolished in those countries," he said.

According to senior officials of Border Security Force and Tripura police, militants belonging to various rebel groups in the northeast region have set up about 90 camps and hideouts in different parts of Bangladesh, specially Sylhet district and Chittagong Hill Tracts
(CHT) bordering India's Tripura, Mizoram and Meghalaya states.

Sarkar said relations between India and Bangladesh have been increasingly coming closer through trade and various other business and economic activities and they would strengthen if Bangladesh completely demolished all camps and hideouts set up in their territory by separatist outfits in the northeast.

"The strength of the militants has remarkably decreased in Tripura. At present, they (extremists) are unable to recruits tribal youths in their outfits as they had done earlier. However, we are not complacent... the Left Front government wants to root out the cause of the militancy permanently from this northeastern state," he said.

During the past one year, about 200 tribal guerrillas of the banned All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF) and National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT), including some carrying rewards of Rs. 250,000 each and Interpol arrest warrants against them, have fled from their camps in Bangladesh camps and surrendered to Indian security forces.

The ATTF and the NLFT have been demanding independence for indigenous tribals and the secession of Tripura from India. (IANS)