Over the last year, more than 350 people have been killed and 50,000 moved into camps in the Dantewada district, as a result of a battle between Maoist (Naxalite) rebels and an Indian government-funded militia called Salwa Judum.
On April 6, 2010, Maoist rebels killed 75 policemen/CRPF men in a jungle ambush in central India, the most security forces ever killed by the insurgents in a single conflict.
A primary survey evaluated by the Forum for Fact-finding Documentation and Advocacy (FFDA) determined that over 12,000 minors were being used by the Salwa Judum in the southern district of Dantewada and that the Chhattisgarh Government had "officially recruited 4200 Special Police Officers (SPOs); many of them being easily identifiable as minors".
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Mahendra Karma, a Congress Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) and the leader of opposition in the State Legislative Assembly became the public front and took the Bijapur-based movement to Dantewada, Katreli and other parts of the region.
In April 2010, the Maoist rebels killed at least 75 Indian soldiers in a series of attacks on security convoys in Dantewada.