Lohardaga (Jharkhand), Nov.19 (ANI): Nearly 130 children have fled their villages in Jharkhand's Lohardaga region for cities to escape being recruited by Maoists.
According to the villagers, Maoists often come and threaten to take their kids away.
Pinki Kumar, a girl, said: "The Maoists come and take us away, because of which we can't even study. They ask for girls. They ask for boys and girls."
In order to seek the help of the government and district officials, villagers like Keshwar Nagesia have left their homes along with their children and come to the city to negotiate a provision wherein they can be put in hostels so that they are able to study.
"We are poor people from the hilly area; we face a lot of problems. We can't bring our children to the town and educate them as we can't afford a place to stay and back home, the Maoists trouble us, they keep asking how old is your child and start forcing us (to give them the child), and if we don't give them the child, they start beating us, we get very scared. They take the children away by threatening us," said Nagesia.
The District Collector of Lohardaga, Sudhanshu Bhushan Ram, said: "We have told the DSC (District Security Committee) that the children who are fit to be admitted to the primary schools should be given admission, but, we will not be able to admit the other small children who still need their parents and are under their custody."
Fear and apprehension of abduction has resulted in families being frequently compelled to move out of the region.
Maoist rebels are rapidly expanding their insurgency and could move from remote rural areas to cities.
Equipped with automatic weapons, shoulder rocket launchers, mines and explosives, the Maoists want to cripple economic activity.
The Maoists claim they are fighting for the rights of the poor and landless, control some of India's mineral-rich areas and operate in large swathes of the eastern, central and southern countryside.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the Maoist rebellion as one of the gravest internal security challenges facing India.
The Maoists are estimated to number 7000 hardcore fighters in nearly a third of India's 630 districts.
While they have made few inroads into cities, they have spread into rural pockets in 20 of the 28 states. The Maoists say they are fighting for the rights of poor and marginal farmers and landless labourers.
Thousands have been killed in the insurgency since the late 1960s. (ANI)
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