Chhattisgarh police found something out of the ordinary during a recent raid at a Maoist camp in Abujhmad forest: Primary-level textbooks for children. Police fear the books — which cover subjects ranging from social studies to mathematics — are being used by Naxals to teach Maoist propaganda to children in the area.

“We only had sketchy inputs about Naxals teaching their doctrines. This is the first time primary-level books have been recovered in Bastar zone”, Narayanpur superintendent of police Mayank Shrivastava said.

The books, mostly in Gondi dialect, are published by the education wing of the Dandakaranya committee of CPI (Maoist), and narrate the ‘struggle’ of the rebels.