NHRC Demands Report From Jharkhand On Abduction And Recruitment Of Children By Maoists

The National Human Rights Commission has issued a notice to the Government of Jharkhand, calling for a report after taking suo motu cognizance of a news article about abduction and recruitment of children by Maoists in Jharkhand.

Through the notice issued to the State’s Chief Secretary and Director General of Police, the NHRC laments the denial of Fundamental Rights to the children who are dragged into the Maoist cadre. The Commission has now given two weeks to the State to respond with specific reference to the following questions:

1. What is the police estimate of actual number of children who have been recruited in the Maoists cadre in the State of Jharkhand?


2. What action has been taken by the Administration/ Police to trace such children, and re-integrate them with the main stream society?


3. What measures have been taken to educate and rehabilitate such children?


4. What action has been taken against the persons, who are involved in dragging the innocent children into the Maoists’ cadre, and coercing them to carry out illegal activities?

As per a press release, the news article alleges that 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, have been termed as easy preys.

These child soldiers are then initiated into violence through execution of brutal punishments pronounced in the Maoists’ Jan Adalats. While the notice acknowledges that some initiative has been taken by the Police forces in Lohardaga and Gumla, it opines that a lot is desired to be done in this regard.