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.
A senior worker from the KAMS told Arundhati Roy that after facing "bestial sexual mutilation" and getting raped by the Salwa Judum members, several of the organisation's members have left the KAMS and joined the CPI (Maoist).
Salwa Judum, an anti-Naxalite movement in Chhattisgarh, India
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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On 25 May 2013, its founder Mahendra Karma, who had become a senior Indian National Congress party leader was killed in a Naxalite attack along with other party members in Darbha Valley of Chhattisgarh, 400 km south of Raipur and 50 km from Jagdalpur.
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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.
The remaining victims were tribal youths of Salwa Judum, designated as Special Police Officers (SPOs) and roped in to combat the Maoists.
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