Supreme Court’s recent directive to dismantle Salwa Judum (SJ) — tribal militia formed in Bastar to fight the Maoists — camps are likely to put the Chhattisgarh government in a tight spot with the SJ members appearing determined not to return to their villages.
Sources in the state home department said the top court has asked the Chhattisgarh government to submit a plan detailing the timeframe by which the camps will be wound up and the judum members resettled in their respective villages.
Around 50,000 judum members have been given shelters in 23 camps in Chhattisgarh’s insurgency-hit districts of Bijapur and Dantewada after they were displaced by Naxal violence in Bastar region.
The inmates, who include both landowners and landless, appear unwilling to go back to their villages for two reason, fear of threat to their lives from the militants and their exposure to urban life after being rehabilitated in the judum camps.
At Maidanpara camp, set up nearly 25 km from Bijapur, the district headquarters, almost all the 2,500 inmates were disinclined to shift to their villages.
Micha Alunga, 68, a resident of nearby Karkela village, had fled his home along with his 12-member family on July 23, 2006, when armed Naxals stormed his house and killed his nephew, Titen Bachham (28) before him.