India’s reactionary state has blood-stained hands for its intensified war of suppression against its people. Since January, it has been implementing Operation Kagaar (Final Mission), part of the expanded implementation of the counterinsurgency campaign Operation SAMADHAN-Prahar. This dirty and brutal operation has killed at least 130 civilians and revolutionaries in the last five months.

In direct translation, the word kagaar means “the edge.” The Indian state said the operation aims to completely end the Indian people’s armed revolutionary movement, led by the Communist Party of India (Maoist), which it claims is now on the “brink” of defeat.

The operation is mainly carried out in Abujhmaad (or Maad), a mountainous and forested region in the south of Chhattisgarh state. It aims to “liberate Maad” which is said to be the primary stronghold of the Maoists. This is currently being implemented in a larger part of the Dandakaranya region covering Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh states in Central India.

Dubbed a “military offensive” against the Maoists, the operation in reality targeted all parties, organizations and individuals expressing opposition to the state.

Violation of international humanitarian law

Operation Kagaar brazenly violates international humanitarian law, the rules of war and special protections of vulnerable sectors during armed conflict. The biggest victims of Brahmanic Hindutva fascism (Indian state fascism against religious minorities and lower social castes) are the Adivasi or indigenous people.

Within two weeks in May, military forces killed 22 Adivasis, including two children, in Chhattisgarh.

The paramilitary massacred 12 Adivasis in Bijabur on May 11. The victims were gathering tendu leaves when abducted and killed. The state even detained 30 activists, victims’ widows, and families collecting the remains of the massacre victims.

The next day, unexploded artillery left by paramilitaries in Odspara, Bijapur went off, killing two children and injuring many. The mortar was among the many that failed to explode when military forces shelled the area’s forest. About 20 Adivasi were also collecting tendu leaves when the explosion occurred.

On May 24, Indian military forces arrested and shot dead eight Adivasi farmers in Rekavaya, on the border of Bijapur and Narayanpur. Another farmer was injured.

Meanwhile on April 16 in the Aapatola-Kalpar forest, Kanker district of Chhattisgarh, Indian military forces tortured and extrajucially killed 11 unarmed revolutionaries and injured six others in the first wave of attacks. The first attack martyred 12 People’s Liberation Guerilla Army fighters.

Cheemala Narasayya (Comrade Joganna, 66), a CPI (Maoist) regional committee member, was also extrajudicially killed after being arrested in Kakur-Tekametta on the border of Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra states on April 30. On that day, four Adivasis were killed in the area.

Indian military forces routinely claim that their victims are casualties in its “encounters” with Maoists. In addition, military camps are being built one after another in communities in the Maad area.

Operation Kagaar and accompanying militarization form part of corporatization and encroachment by large companies into India’s rich forests. Masquerading as anti-Maoist war, these operations serve the intensifying plunder of the nations’ resources by big foreign corporations.