Ghodagaon Massacre: Twenty Years On, the Memory of Maoist Carnage Endures

 

Two decades ago, on the very day of 25th March, 2006, the blood of 11 innocent Indians stained the soil of Kanker district in Chhattisgarh.

 

It was a planned ambush by CPI-Maoist terrorists who are the self-styled "revolutionaries". They have long masqueraded as champions of the tribal poor while waging a brutal war against the very soul of Bharat.

 

On March 25, 2006, Maoists triggered a landmine near Ghodagaon village under the Pakhanjur police station area, about 250 km from Raipur. Mistaking a private jeep taxi for a police vehicle, the cowards detonated the explosive, killing 11 civilians on the spot and injuring four others.

 

Then Kanker Superintendent of Police Pradeep Gupta had confirmed the details, mentioning that a police party had rushed to the spot as reports trickled in. The same day, in nearby Bastar, security forces delivered justice in a fierce encounter, gunning down five Maoists, including a 'deputy commander', in the Dhanora jungle area.

 

Notably, 2006 was the peak of Maoist savagery in the Red Corridor. The UPA government at the centre, led by a prime minister who himself called Naxalism the "single biggest internal security challenge", dithered with half-measures and endless "dialogue" that only emboldened the gun-toting ideologues.

 

 

In Chhattisgarh, under the BJP government of Raman Singh, the tribal people themselves rose in resistance through the Salwa Judum, which was a spontaneous people's movement against the Maoist stranglehold.

 

The left-liberal ecosystem, ever ready to paint terrorists as victims, vilified this tribal uprising while ignoring the Maoists who extorted, abducted, and executed anyone who dared oppose their foreign-inspired ideology of class hatred and anti-national disruption.