According to police officials posted in left Wing Extremism (lWE) infested districts of the State, incidents of forced abduction of children by Naxals could be checked only through bringing developmental measures at their door steps. However, they say that efforts were still on to trace the missing children.
The Jharkhand High Court, while hearing a Public Interest litigation (PIl) on Wednesday, has asked the state police to file detailed report that what action has been taken so far in this regard.
According to the police records in Gumla district, out of the total of 19 children taken away by the naxals, seven have come back while 12 children are still traceless while 7 others were missing from lohardaga.
“Until and unless proper rehabilitation plan is chalked out for the people living in the interiors, it is difficult to check such incidents,” said an SP posted in a naxal infested district requesting anonymity.
Police official said that it was not an ordinary case that one could go inside the jungle and take children back home. “As children are involved in it, operations are conducted in a very sensitive way taking all precautions that no any children gets hurt during operations,” said the official.
Moreover, the SP maintained that all children taken away by the naxals were not minors. Those who could sustain themselves with the Maoists remained with them, while those who did not liked their life style somehow managed themselves to return home, he said.
“All the children, taken away by the naxals, did not have exact birth records and appeared to be majors instead of minors,” said the SP.
When asked about the status of the missing children, lohardga SP Kartik S also maintained that some are still with the naxals and efforts were being made to recover them.
“Although some of the missing children have come back, others are still to be traced out for which operations are still being conducted,” said Kartik S.
Police action accompanied by other government agencies could not be the proper mechanism to tackle such a grave situation faced by the villagers of some of the remote areas in the state, added the official. He however, said that adequate action is being taken by the police to recover the children on the basis of the list made available to them by various sources.
Besides that, proper awareness campaign asking the parents not to come under pressure of the Naxal outfits should be done in the area taking confidence building measures showing the presence of government agencies giving them a sense of security among the villagers.
Earlier in September 2013, the issue was highlighted after a group of eleven children were forcefully taken away by the CPI (Maoists) to train them in planting bombs. later, all of them were freed by them after the death of a child was leaked in the media.
The Maoists had abducted 11 children on September 2013 from Bandhua village under Herhanj police station in lathar district after they failed to pay a fine of Rs 5,000 imposed by the rebels on each household of the village alleging them of cutting trees of the adjoining forest area for preparing filed for cultivation.