Giving the information in a written reply, Minister of State for Home Sriprakash Jaiswal said an arrested extremist had stated this during interrogation by Jharkhand police.

He said no other details in this regard are available.

In reply to another question, he said as per information available, Maoists have sophisticated weapons and communication systems.

The extremists primarily get a substantial bulk of their weapons by looting and they also get them from illicit weapon manufacturing units, Jaiswal said.

Responding to another query, he said Chhattisgarh police has reported that 42 pairs of pants and shirts and 40 metres of cloth meant for Naxalites were recovered in Bilaspur from a tailoring shop run by the wife of a Railway employee at her husband's railway quarter.

He said the case is under investigation.

The total number of naxalite incidents has increased from 1,509 in 2006 to 1,565 in 2007, he said.

There has, however, been a dip in the statistic since 2005, with 1,608 such incidents reported in that year.