TOI - Outgunned Maoists recruiting even 9-year-olds as soldiers
Crumbling under relentless pressure from security forces, Maoists in Bastar may be recruiting child soldiers as young as nine years old.
A handwritten Maoist letter in Telugu found at a recent encounter site in a forest in Bijapur’s Abujhmarh claims that CPI (Maoist) has recruited 130 cadres from Marh region, 80 of them minors, including children aged nine. It says these raw recruits are undergoing training in “guerrilla warfare, weapon handling and IED-making”.
It also paints a picture of an insurgent organisation in disarray, low on morale and fighters, and the gnawing realisation of being locked in a losing battle. Union home minister Amit Shah has vowed that Naxalism will be uprooted from the country by March 2026.
“Earlier, teenagers were recruited into Maoist cultural wing, called Chetna Natya Manch, and later given combat training. If the review report is to be believed, then it indicates a dangerous trend of Maoists recruiting children as ‘child soldiers’. We don’t want a soldiers-vs-children and will run campaigns to stop this recruitment,” a senior officer of Bastar range said.
A young surrendered cadre in Bijapur told TOI that Maoists make it mandatory for villages to hand over a certain number of children and youngsters and threaten to evict families that don’t abide by the ‘rule’.
Maoists have imposed stricter rules on new recruits — they are no longer allowed to visit their villages or families, fearing they may surrender or be arrested. If a recruit tries to leave, or is seen interacting with family or outsiders, this is to be immediately escalated to the committee commander, it says. Of 14 such cases, six were summoned for “counselling and review” by the leadership.
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and individuals came together for a virtual press conference to demand immediate peace talks between the government and the Communist Party of India (Maoist) (CPI(Maoist)). The CPI (Maoist), through multiple letters and press interviews, expressed its willingness for a “unilateral ceasefire, unless attacked”. This offer, according to the press statement released after the conference, makes it “imperative on the Government of India to also declare a ceasefire and start peace talks”.