Operation Kagaar's ledger: 607 dead, no accountability

By Deepika Tandon, Shahana Bhattacharya* 

The People's Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) new report "Reddening The Green: Costs, Contexts, And Consequences Of The War In Bastar (2024-2026)" presents an account of 27 months of Operation Kagaar — security operations conducted jointly by the central and state governments between January 2024 and March 2026 with the professed object of the 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 the Bastar division. 

In attempting an exhaustive documentation of all publicly reported killings, arrests and surrenders under Kagaar, it raises unanswered questions on State accountability in pursuit of a policy of militarization, and situates these within the accompanying context of mining, dispossession and violations of Adivasi rights under the Fifth Schedule, PESA and the FRA.

The documentation of killings, arrests and surrenders has been collated from newspapers, primarily the 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. 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), 9% civilians (55), and 6% security personnel (36). By comparison, between 2021 and 2023, government sources reported the killings of 101 "Maoists," 79 security personnel, and 107 civilians. Alongside the killings, the same period saw 487 arrests and 1,496 surrenders.

The report makes three key findings relating to the nature of these operations and the question of accountability. The first concerns the 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 relayed by newspapers is limited to the site of the incident, numbers, and often the identities of those killed or arrested. There is no reporting on the ensuing legal proceedings, whether by way of magisterial inquiries or on the nature of allegations and detention of those arrested.

The second finding concerns a 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 a ceasefire and peace talks. Of particular concern are two prongs of this policy of militarization under Kagaar: the proclamation of monetary rewards for security personnel, which sets up adverse incentives for State forces to perpetrate unlawful force and extra-judicial killings in the manner of a bounty hunt; and 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, in principle, a welcome form of amnesty for political dissidents, those who apparently "surrender" languish in camps under indefinite and illegal detention, subject to conditions entirely outside constitutional and criminal law.

The third finding concerns illegality and State accountability. The report underlines the urgency of compliance with the PUCL guidelines on extra-judicial killings in each instance, and raises questions on State actions in the killings, arrests and surrenders it documents. But it goes further, finding the PUCL guidelines insufficient to determine State accountability for the adoption of force as a matter of State policy in the context of an armed conflict. The nature and scale of the operations defy categorization of State action within the framework of "law and order." The report finds that the killings were the outcome of a committed State policy of the use of force, largely one-sided, unfolding in a systematic and coordinated fashion between joint forces under the command and control of the central and state governments. No law in India authorizes the adoption of force as a matter of State policy, and 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, by which the Indian State is bound, particularly international humanitarian law under the Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter and customary law, for direct guidance on the norms and procedures governing the use of force in an internal armed conflict.

The report also 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 that Adivasis hold under the Fifth Schedule, the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act and the Forest Rights Act. These constitutional and statutory rights have never been sufficiently secured in post-Independence India, but the period since the COVID-19 pandemic has witnessed a drastic overhaul of 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 to the unaccounted privatization of forests and mineral resources: they 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; and undermine the requirement of free, prior and informed consent of Gram Sabhas, among other measures.

The Chhattisgarh government's Industrial Policy 2024-30 proposes investments in Bastar to the tune of Rs 52,000 crore, more than 80% of which is earmarked for NMDC's mining projects. Other priorities include railways and road infrastructure, appendages to the mining infrastructure. For the first time, private corporations have been granted access to mine in the Bailadila hills, and the central and state governments have also introduced new projects and revived old ones, such as the long-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 the NIA under UAPA and continue to languish in custody. In Odisha, the Maa Maati Maali Surakhya Manch, which is resisting a 1,549-hectare bauxite mine leased to Vedanta for fifty years across the Kalahandi and Rayagada districts, has been the subject of relentless police action through FIRs, arrests and police firings, among other measures.

This blind rush for mineral wealth is stained by the blood of Adivasis. While the State proclaims Kagaar as the death of Left-Wing Extremism in central-eastern India, it marks instead the death knell of the rule of law and of the constitutional aspirations of Adivasis to autonomy and self-governance.

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*Secretaries, PUDR