In 1994, the Naxal group People’s War killed Umakanth, a landlord in Aurad, a town in Karnataka’s northernmost district Bidar. This killing marked the start of a cycle of violence that claimed the lives of Maoists, police personnel, people branded as police informants by the Maoists, and other civilians. Now, 41 years later, the government of Karnataka has declared the state ‘Naxal-free’ after eight cadres of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) surrendered recently.
