The murder of a journalist and the forgotten Maoist war in Bastar

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The first week of 2025 has seen 16 people killed in Bastar – one of them, a young, intrepid journalist, Mukesh Chandrakar. Five months after his report on irregularities in a road construction project in Bijapur district prompted a government inquiry, his body was found in a septic tank on the property of the road contractor.

Chandrakar’s murder for exposing embezzlement has caused a national furore – as it should. But few realise how intrinsically it is linked to the Maoist insurgency in the region.

It took another local journalist to point out the connection. Days after Chandrakar’s death, returning to the broken road built at a cost of Rs 120 crore, journalist Vikas Tiwari pithily summed up the tragedy in a piece to the camera.

“Union Home Minister Amit Shah has claimed that Bastar, which has been in the grip of Maoism for four decades, will be liberated by March 31, 2026,” he said, referring to the declaration that Shah made last year of an “all-out war” on...

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