Among all insurgent groups in India, the Maoists are the worst violators of human rights, says a study. “The Maoists have been responsible for brutal killing of their hostages after abduction,” the report further adds.

The report was released on Tuesday by the Asian Centre for Human Rights, a New Delhi based human rights watchdog. It further says that killing and extortion by the Maoists are done with the blessings of its top leaders.

According to the report titled ‘Torture in India, 2010,’ “the Maoists have been responsible for brutal killing by slitting throats of the hostages or beheading them.” It says that killings are generally authorised in the ‘people’s courts or Jan Adalats run by the Maoists to give justice to its own people.

The report highlights that there has been rise of such torture by the Maoists from 2000 to 2008. “The Maoists specially target civilians on the allegation of being “police informers”, members of the anti-Maoist civilian militia such as “Salwa Judum” and for not obeying their diktats,” the report points out.

The report has cited at least 17 examples of Maoists killing civilians, including the 4 September, 2009 slaughter of four villagers in Bijapur of Chhattisgarh on suspicion of being police informers. Calling this a blatant disregard for the international humanitarian law committed by the Maoists, the report, however, also blamed the government for “failing in its efforts to hold perpetrators of abuses accountable for their actions, whether committed by the state, the Maoists or other armed opposition groups.”  

The report came a week after the Maoists ambushed a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) team which left around 76 soldiers dead in deep in the jungles of Chattisgarh’s Dantewada district.