Two Naxals — a 25-year old woman and a 19-year-old man — who recently surrendered to the police, narrated their tale, and why they chose to surrender. The two ran away from their dalams, and told The Asian Age that they live in mortal fear of being targeted by senior members of the dalams.
On January 1 this year, Nirmala Khudumete alias Sony (25), and Sukhram Madavi alias Jagat (19) surrendered before Pranhita police sub-headquarters in the Aheri tehsil in Gadchiroli. Both will receive a compensation of `1 lakh from the government for surrendering.
Narrating her experience, Khudumete said, “I was lured away from home when I was 12 by a group of eight dancers, who promised to teach me to dance and sing if I accompanied them for a few days. Soon, I suspected something amiss and tried to run away. But they caught me and sent me to a dalam in Bhamragadh, following which I was sent to Chhattisgarh to a Naxal-run school.”
Khudumete said she was given weapons training when she turned 15. “I was made a member of the Kohkamette dalam, which comprised five women and two men. Soon I rose to commandeer the dalam. In 2005, I was involved in a landmine attack on a police jeep in which three policemen died; later the same year, I also set a tractor on fire. But my primary job was to train students of the Naxal-run Jantasarkar Bhunkali school in Chhattisgarh,” she said.
Khudumete decided to surrender after a senior at the school kept berating her and due to the constant shortage of food, clothes and other commodities. But she feels her dalam seniors will find her and kill her.
Madavi, the other Naxal, has been disowned by his parents. “I was a school dropout. In 2008, a woman offered to train me and four other boys. Having nothing else to do, I agreed. I was inducted into the Kohkametta dalam, and then sent to the same school where Nirmala taught. My job was to go to villages and buy groceries, as being so young, no one would suspect me. But the teachers kept abusing me, and so I decided to escape. But my parents cursed me and disowned me. I don’t know where to go now,” he said.