This report presents an account of 27 months of Operation Kagaar – security operations conducted jointly by the central and state governments between January 2024–March 2026 with the professed object of complete elimination of ‘Naxalism’ or ‘Left-Wing Extremism’. While Kagaar was conducted across several states of central-eastern India, including Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra, this report focuses on seven districts of Bastar division. In attempting an exhaustive documentation of all publicly-reported killings, arrests and surrenders under Kagaar, the report raises unanswered questions on State accountability in pursuit of a policy of militarization (Part I), and the accompanying context of mining, dispossession and violations of Adivasi rights under the Fifth Schedule, PESA and FRA (Part II).
PART I
The documentation of killings, arrests and surrenders has been collated from newspapers, primarily Bastar edition of Dainik Bhaskar. These accounts have not been independently verified by PUDR. and remain subject to revision, as they are, directly or indirectly, sourced back to representations of the Chhattisgarh government and the security apparatus alone.
KILLINGS: 607 ARRESTS: 487 SURRENDERS: 1496
On the face of it, these 27 months of Operation Kagaar in Bastar have resulted in about 607 deaths, with 85% of those killed alleged to be Maoists (516), 09% civilians (55), and 06% security personnel (36). By comparison, between 2021-23, government sources report the killings of 101 ‘Maoists’, 79 security personnel, and 107 civilians.
The report makes three key findings relating to the nature of Operations and accountability:
- Lack of Independent Information
Operation Kagaar was waged within a paradox, having been conducted in full public view, but with severe restrictions on public access to independent information. While national and local dailies regularly reported on incidents of killings, surrenders, and arrests, these appear to have been sourced solely from information supplied by the government. Scarcely has the media undertaken any independent verification of these claims.
Information supplied by the government and newspaper sources is limited to the site of the incident, numbers, and often, identities of those killed or arrested. There is no reporting on the ensuing legal proceedings, either by way of magisterial inquiries, or the nature of allegations and detention of those arrested.
- State Policy of Militarization
Kagaar represents an escalation of the Indian State’s military response to the conflict over land, forests and Adivasi autonomy, foreclosing political resolution of a conflict that is fundamentally about the constitutional rights of Adivasis. This rejection of political avenues of resolution was on display even during 2024-25 when the Chhattisgarh government continually rejected calls for ceasefire and peace talks.
Of particular concern are two prongs of this policy of militarization under Kagaar: (i) the proclamation of monetary rewards for security personnel, which set up adverse incentives for State forces to perpetrate unlawful force and extra-judicial killings in the manner of a bounty-hunt; and (ii) the so-called surrender-cum-rehabilitation policy, revised in 2025, which set up a choice for Maoists between surrendering or being killed, and precluded avenues of dialogue. While the surrender policy is a welcome form of amnesty for political dissidents, those who apparently ‘surrendered’ languish in camps under indefinite and illegal detentions, and subject to conditions entirely outside constitutional and criminal law.
- Illegality and State Accountability
This report underlines the urgency of compliance with the PUCL guidelines on extra-judicial killings in each instance and raises questions on State actions on killings, arrests and surrenders as documented. However, the report goes further in finding PUCL guidelines insufficient to determine State accountability to prosecute the adoption of force as a matter of State policy in context of an armed conflict.
The nature and scale of Operations defy categorization of State action within the framework of ‘law and order’. The report finds that the killings were an outcome of a committed State policy of use of force, which was largely one-sided, and unfolded in a systematic and co-ordinated fashion between joint forces under the command and control of the central and state government.
No law in India authorizes the adoption of force as a matter of State policy. The PUCL guidelines, while necessary, are insufficient to establish accountability in the present case, where the entire executive machinery is complicit in the perpetration of force under official command. The report recommends a turn to international law (that the Indian State is bound by), particularly international humanitarian law as under the Geneva Conventions, UN Charter and customary law, for direct guidance on norms and procedures governing the use of force in an internal armed conflict.
PART II
The report contextualizes Operation Kagaar within ongoing legal and economic measures in pursuit of mining and other development projects, which thwart the constitutional and statutory rights of autonomy and self-governance of Adivasis under the Fifth Schedule, Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act and the Forest Rights Act (FRA).
While these constitutional and statutory rights have never been sufficiently secured in post-Independence India, the period since the COVID-19 pandemic has witnessed a drastic overhaul in the regulatory regime governing mining, forests and environmental protection in the interest of ‘ease of doing business’.
Cumulatively, these legal and regulatory changes throw the gates wide open for the unaccounted privatization of forests and mineral resources. These amend the definition of ‘forest’, introduce a category of private forests and delist minerals for privatization; extend the period of mining leases to fifty years while facilitating add-ons to existing leases; expand the list of projects exempt from forest clearance particularly for the establishment of security infrastructure; effectively pardon egregious environmental damage; undermine the requirement of free, prior and informed consent of Gram Sabhas, among others.
The Chhattisgarh government’s Industrial Policy 2024-30 proposes investments in Bastar to the tune of Rs.52,000 crores, more than 80% of which is earmarked to the NMDC for mining
projects. Other priorities include railways and road infrastructure, which are appendages to the mining infrastructure. For the first time, private corporations have been granted access for mining in Bailadila hills. The central and state government has also introduced new projects and renewed old ones, such as the dormant Bodh Ghat dam project in Bastar.
This large-scale siphoning of forests and natural resources has been accompanied by mass criminalization and police action against forest rights and anti-displacement movements across central-eastern India. Most notably, the Moolwasi Bachao Manch in Chhattisgarh was banned under the Chhattisgarh Special Public Safety Act in 2024. While the ban has since lapsed, its members and office-bearers were arrested by NIA under UAPA and continue to languish in custody. In Odisha, the Maa Maati Maali Surakhya Manch resisting a 1549 hectare bauxite mine leased to Vedanta for fifty years in Kalahanda and Rayagada districts has been the subject of relentless police action through FIRs, arrests, police firings, among others.
This blind rush for the loot of mineral wealth is stained by the blood of Adivasis. While the State proclaims Kagaar as the death of LWE in central-eastern India, it instead marks the death knell of rule of law and the constitutional aspirations of Adivasis to autonomy and self-governance.
Deepika Tandon and Shahana Bhattacharya
(Secretaries, PUDR)
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