Naxal violence badly hit villagers: Rights panel

Terming the May 25 naxal attack on Congress leaders in Chhattisgarh as “savage”, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Wednesday appealed to the rebels to abandon violence, saying it had made matters worse for the villagers whose cause they claimed to espouse.

Terming the May 25 naxal attack on Congress leaders in Chhattisgarh as “savage”, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Wednesday appealed to the rebels to abandon violence, saying it had made matters worse for the villagers whose cause they claimed to espouse.

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In a statement, an appalled NHRC condemned the brutal manner in which around 30 people, including state Congress chief Nand Kumar Patel and Salwa Judum’s founder Mahendra Karma were killed.

“Health and education facilities can rarely be provided; only the PDS is permitted to function, because a part of these food supplies sustain naxals. The children of these families, poor, ill-fed, illiterate, are the pool from whom naxals recruit their cadres. For the naxals, therefore, violence is self-serving. There is no just cause which they try to advance through it.

“It was clear to the Commission that the naxals have now made it impossible to reach social welfare programmes to those who need them most,” it said.