‘Over 600 killings, no data on circumstances of arrest, and relentless mining’: The costs of the Indian government’s crackdown in Bastar

Jungle Chup Hai 

Magar Uski Khaamoshi me 

Hazaaron kate hue tano ki cheekhein dafn hai 

The forest is silent

But in its silence 

It carries the shrieks of a thousand tree trunks which have been cut down 

– Lapata Jungle, Sudhir Dhawale  

ON JUNE 11, 2026, the People’s Union for Democratic Rights (‘PUDR’) launched their most recent report on Operation Kagaar which was a compact set of security operations by both the central and the state governments between January 2024- March 2026. The foremost goal of the Operation Kagaar is synonymous with the meaning of the word itself which means to shrink something to a  ‘brink’, or ‘verge’ with the operation acting as one of the most momentous blows of the government to obliterate the existence of ‘Naxalism’ or ‘Left wing extremism’ mainly in the states of Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra.  

PUDR’s report focuses on seven districts in Bastar, Chhattisgarh. By taking into account the  publicly reported killings, arrests and surrenders ensued by virtue of the Operation Kagaar, the report records the extent and magnitude of state accountability.  

A crackdown on years of resistance

In February 2025, Home Minister Amit Shah declared that March 31, 2026 would be treated as a deadline for the complete eradication of naxalism from the country. This led to the development of a coordinated strategy involving a multitude of security agencies such as the National Investigation Agency, Central Reserve Police Force, Border Security Force, Sashastra Seema Bal. Indo-Tibetan Border Police and the forces operating in Chattisgarh. Operation Kagaar functioned as the government’s most strategically channelised blow to the entire Maoist Movement. 

The age-old rift between Adivasi communities and the state stems from the time of the British colonial state’s move to dispossess the communities for securing the forest wealth which has continued even after India’s independence with various governments coming in and widening the scope for private corporations to extract forest wealth through its resources. Adivasi communities have been continuously deprived of their own land even as forest ecosystems and biodiversity they have relied on has faced extreme extraction. In the backdrop of systematic violation of rights of  the Adivasi communities,  political movements were ignited. 

Over 600 killings, opacity around circumstances of arrest

PUDR’s  report analyses Operation Kagaar through the standpoint of ‘costs and consequences’ of the armed conflict on Adivasis through reported accounts in newspapers of killings, arrests and surrenders between January 1, 2024 and March 31, 2026. 

The first part of the report starts by identifying  the unusual circumstances surrounding Operation Kagaar with a high number of incidents of violence allegedly by Maoists on one side and the State forces on the other hand with the violence mostly being initiated by the State forces. This violence was coordinated through a collaboration between the Home Ministry  and the Inspector General of Police of Chattisgarh. The availability of  public information on any such incidents of killing and surrender is primarily based on  information furnished by the police or the government with no independent account of what took place and no follow-up on the legal developments in such cases.

The report records the killing of a total number of 607 persons comprising 516 alleged Maoists, 36 state forces and 55 civilians from the period of January 1, 2024 - March 31, 2026. There is also no official account of extra-judicial killings with only a sole case of custodial death in which a judicial enquiry was ordered with no follow-ups in the newspapers on the trajectory or conclusion of such enquiries. 

The report also highlights the absolute lack of information on the basis on which individuals termed as Maoists were identified, on the pendency of any criminal case against such identified persons. In cases where the state seized arms and ammunition from those killed, the report highlights the need for close scrutiny of such recoveries and in cases where no such recoveries have been made, it raises questions on the requirement for such a killing with the option of arrest seeming to be a more rationally viable alternative. 

With respect to arrests, the report records 487 alleged Maoists being arrested between the time period of January 1, 2024 to March 31, 2026. The arrests, however, do not contain any information pertaining to the specific spot or place of arrest, circumstances of the arrest, or mention of FIR numbers.  

The record for Bastar region pertaining to the surrenders indicates the surrender of 1496 alleged Maoists from January 1, 2024 to March 31, 2026. A surrender -cum-rehabilitaion policy of the Union government is currently in place with surrender being the only alternative choice to being killed by the forces. The unidirectional flow of information which was mainly controlled by the government on  incidents of killings, arrest and surrender casts aspersion on whether killing was required in each of the alleged operations, the presence of a substantive basis on warranting the arrests and whether the rights of those taken into custody were maintained.