Dantewada: A whole generation of children in Maoist-affected areas of states like Chhattisgarh are growing up with psychological scars that may become very difficult to deal with. NDTV visited a school in Dantewada where all the children are victims of Red terror.
Sunil's father was killed in 2006 by Maoists because he was suspected of helping the police. Sunil says he was targeted only because policemen ate at the eatery he ran in Bijapur in Chhattisgarh.
"My father was a
sarpanch. He started a hotel and policemen used to eat there. That made the Maoists angry and they killed him,'' he says.
There are 167 victims of Red terror at this school, some as young as five years old. The oldest is 16. It almost seems Utopian compared to the world outside. But when they go back home during vacation, the fear of gun-toting Maoists, haunts them all over again.
Anitha, saw her father tortured and assaulted before the Maoists killed him four years ago.
"We feel scared that they could kill us also because my family lived in the Salwa Judum camp," she says.
As the war with the Maoists enters a more combative and bloody phase, a whole generation next of Chattisgarh is asking a simple question: What is our fault to deserve this?