Union home minister P Chdambaram has drawn flak from international human rights groups for warning the intellectuals and NGOs against supporting the ideology of Maoists and Naxalites.

In a recent statement, Human Rights Watch said the home minister should not equate political views with criminal acts and appear to threaten to curb the freedom of expression. "The Indian government should think twice before trying to silence political discussion and demanding endorsement of its views on Maoist groups," Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, was quoted as saying.

The international media is also abuzz with stories home ministry's warnings to Maoist sympathisers. On May 20, Radio Australia aired a programme interviewing Harish Dhawan of People’s Union for Democratic Rights, who told the interviewer that almost all the human rights activists and trade union activists were facing similar threats.

“This kind of a threat is actually trying to push everybody else, anybody who opposes can be labelled as a Maoist… which they aren't. And by doing so trying to browbeat them into silence, I think this is really condemnable,” Dhawan said.

The programme also featured Himanshu Kumar, who was introduced as a social activist from Dantewada who was forced to flee his home state to Delhi.

An opinion piece carried by the Wall Street Journal said by targeting human rihts group, the government was actually diverting the attention from its own failures. Paul Beckett, the author, wrote that the government seemed unable to formulate a strategy to tackle the issue.