Describing Naxalism as the country's 'first enemy', Union Home Minister P Chidambaram has assured that the menace would be completely rooted out in another two or three years.
He said Naxalism has assumed gigantic proportions as it had not been dealt with properly in the last 12 years.
"Naxalism is the first enemy of the country," he said while addressing a public meeting at suburban Avadi, 45 km from Chennai, late on Sunday night.
Defending the huge allocation for defence expenditure in the budget, he said it had become necessary as neighbouring nations like Pakistan and China were treating India as their 'enemy'.
"Pakistan is training terrorists and allowing them to infiltrate into India and is trying to drive a wedge between Muslims and Hindus in the country. Whenever we want to talk to Pakistan, we have to talk about terrorism, but that country frowns upon the idea," he said.
Pakistan is the 'centre of terrorism' and all terrorist activities, whether in Afghanistan or United States, could be traced to Pakistan, the home minister said.
