The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), issuing notices to Chief Secretary and Director-General of Police, has called for a report over the articles published in newspapers about abduction and recruitment of children by Maoists in Jharkhand.
Taking suo motu cognisance over the media reports, the Commission has given two week’s time to the State Government to respond.
The NHRC also observed that article brings forth the stark reality of the vulnerability of the children in the remote areas of Jharkhand, who are dragged into Maoist cadres following which their lives are ruined.
“The issues raised in the article are gross violation of the human rights of the children,” stated an official release issued by NHRC.
Two weeks time has been given by the Commission to State Government to respond with specific reference to the questions: what is the police estimate of actual number of children who have been recruited in the Maoists cadre in the State of Jharkhand, what action has been taken by the Police to trace such children and re-integrate them with the main stream of the society, what measures have been taken to educate and rehabilitate such children and what action has been taken against the persons who were involved in dragging the innocent children into the Maoists' cadre and coercing them to carry out illegal activitiesIJ
The release further stated that the news article, carried on the 8th May, 2017, more than thousand children have been abducted over the past few years and deployed as foot soldiers, couriers and sentries around Maoists' camps in Jharkhand. Children from lohardaga, Gumla, latehar and Simdega, the western districts of the State, bordering the Maoist strongholds in Chhattisgarh and Odisha, are easy prey.
“In some districts Maoists ask for five children from every village. The villagers have no option but to give in,” it stated.
Reportedly, Child soldiers are made to chop off a thief’s ears or strip offenders naked and cane them. The recruits are initiated into violence through execution of brutal punishments pronounced in the Maoists’ ‘jan adalats’. Murder is the most important rite of passage. Female victims experienced sexual abuse by the Maoists. It has been reported that the police have taken some initiative where lohardaga and Gumla police have got some of the rescued children admitted in the schools but still, most of the victims stare at an uncertain future.