Children are migrating from Jharkhand's Lohardaga region to avoid being kidnapped and coercively recruited by Maoists.
Maoists
are known to have repeatedly attacked schools to disrupt education and
use children as shields during their anti-government operations.
Dinesh Nageshiya, a student, expressed anguish over the increasing Maoist activities in the region.
"Maoists ask us to get involve with them and force us to take up arms," Nageshiya claimed.
The
Maoists reportedly mobilise children in the age group of 6 to 12 into
their junior wing and indoctrinate, train, and use them as informers
against the administration.
They use children to gather
intelligence apart from deploying them on sentry duties, to make and
plant landmines and bombs, and also engage them in hostilities against
government forces.
Interacting with mediapersons, Sub-Divisional
Police Officer Ram Gulam Sharma said that social policing has helped
them to keep a track of Maoists who forcibly recruit children for armed
conflict.
"The Maoists always target the children belonging to
poor and illiterate backgrounds. Through police-public cooperation, we
conduct policing and this has created a huge impact on the locals as the
children are not ready to join the Maoist camps and they have developed
their interest in studies," said Sharma.
Maoists have
significantly increased their presence in tribal and rural regions in
the states of Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa.
Human
Rights Watch (HRW), an international voluntary forum, has been closely
monitoring the recruitment of children by Maoists and views such
admissions and attacks as a clear a violation of human rights. (ANI)
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