The Latest Breaking News from Bastar

This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Jayashree Arunachalam, Raman Kirpal and Shardool Katyayan are joined by senior journalist and CGNet Swara’s co-founder Shubhranshu Choudhary.We start with a discussion on the killing of 27 suspected Maoists in Chhattisgarh this week and analyse if the Maoist movement in…

Rebels fighting against mining and militarisation outnumbered by over 40,000 forces deployed in Bastar, Chhattisgarh.

On January 1, Mukesh Chandrakar sent me a link on WhatsApp to a story that he and Nilesh Tripathi had worked on, about the conditions of the schools in Naxal-affected Bastar. Three hours later, he would go missing. 

The prime suspect in the murder of Bastar journalist Mukesh Chandrakar has been arrested in Hyderabad.

Speaking on the operation, Bastar Inspector General (IG) P Sundarraj said that the role of contractor Suresh Chandrakar is also being investigated. Read further on Dynamite News:

Christian families in a village in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar district say they feel uncertain about Christmas celebrations amid local pressure for “ghar wapsi”, after a mob allegedly stopped a funeral and assaulted seven members of the community last month.

“Police asked if we were linked to Naxals...warned that if I continued protesting, I would be jailed,” said 17-year-old Madkam Dhanni, one of two minors arrested among 17 others after the Chhattisgarh government’s ban on tribal rights outfit Moolvasi Bachao Manch on November 8. 

The encounter broke out between security forces and naxalites in the Abhujmaad forest along the border of Narayanpur and Dantewada district: Read further on Dynamite News:

Five days after four Bastar journalists were detained by the Andhra Pradesh police at the state border, the Chhattisgarh police arrested its Konta police station in-charge last week for tampering with CCTV footage related to the journalists’ arrest.