The 120-odd residents of Gavadi, a village in the dense forests of Abujhmar, have long learned to live in the shadows of conflict. But Chhattisgarh’s “biggest ever encounter” was something different for them.
“From 3 p.m. to 6 p.m., I heard gunshots and was scared. Although they were at a distance (points towards a nearby hill), I locked my family inside and hoped for it to end. I had never experienced anything like this before,” says Kahru Mandavi, who does not know his age but appears to be in his late forties.
Mr. Mandavi and other villagers are Anbujhmarias, a tribe that takes its name after the 4,000-square kilometre unsurveyed forested area, Abujhmar, in the rugged hills of Bastar.
Lakshman Poyam is a resident of Abagum village which is further removed from the encounter site but says he heard the gunshots clearly. | Photo Credit: Shubhomoy Sikdar
Gawadi is one of the villages closest to the forest where an encounter took place on October 4 in which 31 alleged Maoists were gunned down by security forces in the forest between Thulthuli and Gawadi villages along the Narayanpur-Dantewada inter-district border, making it the maximum fatalities suffered by Maoists in a single operation since the State’s creation 24 years ago. Gawadi is among several villages which are a part of the Thulthuli gram Panchayat.
For fellow resident Kamlu Mandavi, 25, the sight of a helicopter was what made him realise how intense the fight was. “The sound made me curious, and I had never seen one from so close. It was definitely something big,” says Kamlu.
There are seven such rivulets; during monsoons life comes to a standstill in these interior villages. | Photo Credit: Shubhomoy Sikdar
Most villagers avoid taking about the recent surge in anti-Maoist operations in Chhattisgarh or taking sides. For them it is a part of life. The village has an Anganwadi and a school. While the men speak Hindi, almost all the women The Hindu came across conveyed through their husbands that they could not speak the language and hence were unable to speak to journalists.
There are new signs of connectivity that have come across in the village over the past one year, such as the Jal Jeevan Mission water tanks equipped with solar pumps and villagers carrying smartphones. While they say that mobile connectivity allows them to “browse YouTube videos seamlessly at certain specific points”, network availability in inconsistent.
A major gap in infrastructure and connectivity is the road. The commute to the village is an ordeal for an outsider which is almost 20 km away from the nearby development block of Orchha. But there is no road and the stretch is a treacherous terrain that is undulated, rocky, muddy and has multiple rivulets. But to a Gavadi resident, it is normal to take this trail to access basic health facilities at Orchha. Sometimes they set out in the dark on bicycles, using torches to illuminate the way.
Yet, some of the villagers do not want a road and the usually guarded people, who avoid discussing encounters and the combat, express their displeasure about the security forces. “If a road is constructed, they will come to take our land,” says Kamlu Mandavi.
The police though dismissed these allegations as “Naxalite propaganda”.
Published - October 07, 2024 11:55 pm IST
