New Delhi, April 6: The Congress has begun to play down its humane approach to the Naxalite problem as its experimental steps are backfiring in Andhra Pradesh, where extremists have revived their offensive defying a ceasefire reached last July.

The party leadership has been silent about the report of a high-profile task force set up in October to go into the Naxalite problem and come up with recommendations to address it in a comprehensive manner.

Party chief Sonia Gandhi had announced her decision to constitute the task force at the one-day AICC session in the capital in August.

The task force, which is headed by Andhra MLA Shashidhar Reddy and includes former Delhi police commissioner and MP Nikhil Kumar and former Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi, quietly submitted its report to Sonia on Saturday.

Reddy is understood to have briefed Sonia in detail about the report during a 45-minute meeting.

Sources said Reddy was instructed not to talk to the media about the report as the Naxalite problem ?is delicately poised?.

The party?s manifesto for the last parliamentary elections had proposed that the Naxalite problem be viewed in the larger socio-economic context and not just as a law and order issue.

In line with this, the report is understood to have been critical of the routine law and order approach adopted by state governments.

Barring Andhra and Bihar that is under President?s rule, the other Naxalite-affected states ? Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh ? are ruled by the Opposition.

The report, the sources said, has avoided comment on the revival of the problem in Andhra where the Congress government held a round of peace talks with Naxalite leaders with much fanfare in July but has since failed to bring them back to the negotiating table.

The panel is understood to have linked the spread of the Naxalite problem in central India to the neglect of tribals, who constitute 8 per cent of the country?s population.

Almost 40 per cent of the tribal population has been displaced because of industrial and mining activities. With hardly any programme for their rehabilitation, the displaced tribals ?have become easy recruits to the Naxalite cause?.

Mere land redistribution would not meaningfully address the problem, the panel has concluded.

?There has to be massive investment in agricultural infrastructure to make land redistribution effective,? the report said.

Employment generation in tribal and rural areas would be another step to stop the youth from joining the violent movement, said sources privy to the report.

The report has come at a time when the Centre is reported to be considering banning the Communist Party of India (Maoist), formed after the merger of the already banned groups PWG and MCC.