Jharkhand Maoists enlist kids, train and compel them to join cadre

Ranchi, Sep.10 (ANI): Maoists in Jharkhand's Ranchi District have reportedly adopted new strategies to strengthen their cadre base by training youths and compelling them to join.

By destroying schools, the Maoists are preventing children from getting educated and from going outside the area where they live.

Young teenagers keen to earn and get employment are induced to join the militant outfits.

For the past few years, the rebels have stepped up their efforts against the government as well as inhabitants. The latter have repeatedly complained that Maoist killings and abductions have increased considerably in the area.

According to certain reports, Maoists are facing an acute shortage of personnel in several areas of central and eastern India, due to the strong efforts taken by security forces to curtail the insurgency.

A senior journalist in the state, Prasant Sharan, said by taking advantage of unemployment in the region, the Maoists aim to facilitate the induction of youth into their armed cadres, who otherwise are left to live their lives without the basic necessities like food and education.

"The Maoists movement was started was started with the ideology of the development of Dalits (lower caste) and making them free from the rule of empowered people but now they have become a criminal outfit.

Now they blow up educational institutions, so that the youth remains illiterate and unaware. They are alluring youth and children towards their groups because there is unemployment in the region, so they are going to villages and are attracting children who are not getting enough food to eat and lack basic necessities. The Maoists are handing over guns to children; instead they should make them aware and provide them with education," said Sharan.

The ultras have also been destroying school buildings in an attempt to ensure the easy availability of illiterate children for recruitment into their militant cadre.

Continuing their spiral of violence against democratic and social institutions of the country, the ultras have been blowing school buildings by the use of explosives.

Maoist insurgency has spread to interiors of 20 of India's 28 states.

The guerrilla war, waged mostly from the forests of central and eastern India by ultras of the banned Communist Party of India-Maoist, now poses the biggest internal security challenge, say analysts.

Hundreds of people have been killed and injured in the violence, perpetrated by both the rebels as well as security forces in counter operations.

Maoists have also significantly increased their presence in tribal and rural regions in the states of Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa.(ANI)