Monday, April 16, 2012

Schoolboy flees Maoist clutches but fears he can never return to mom

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120416/jsp/frontpage/story_15378804.jsp#.T4wudLNa5vY

Schoolboy flees Maoist clutches but fears he can never return to mom

Orchha (Chhattisgarh), April 15: Be a guerrilla to beat the guerrillas.

That's the strategy tribal schoolboy Paaklu Ram Mandavi adopted late last month to flee from Maoist captivity in the uncharted forests of Abujh-Maadh in the heart of Bastar.

For almost two days and two nights, battling hunger and thirst, the 17-year-old Maadia boy hid, ran and trudged up and down hills to pull off a rare escape, unheard of in these parts.

"The choice," he says about the risk he took, dashing out right in front of his gun-toting captors, "was between sure death and a possibility."

He was to be produced before a kangaroo court, which meant certain "execution".

"For him the escape wasn't such a big deal," says Narayanpur district police chief Mayank Shrivastava.

Paaklu is about six feet tall, played volleyball for his school last year at national events, and believes he can make it to the Indian team in future.

Still, at a time Maoist abductions, such as those of the two Italians and an MLA in Odisha, have put state governments on the mat, his feat stands out.

"I haven't heard of any such effort before," says Irfan Khan, a local Hindi journalist.

Not many here know Paaklu's story yet. The police have advised him to lie low. The Maoists never pardon their targets, the teen says.

'For my mom'

The Maoists thought he was a police informer, Paaklu says, because he had left his village of Mathbeda in Maadh to study in a government residential school in Narayanpur town.

In the rebels' eyes, leaving Maadh — a Maoist "liberated zone" of over 5,000sqkm in southern Narayanpur where the government and troops fear to tread — for higher studies in a town is a breach of trust. So Paaklu is a state "collaborator" for them.

So, why did he risk re-entering Maadh on March 26? "I wanted to see my mother," Paaklu says.

He hadn't been home since shifting to Narayanpur in May 2010 after completing Class VIII.

So, on March 26, Monday, after writing his final Secondary School Certificate exam, he left for Orchha, a block headquarters with marginal state presence. Paaklu knew that villagers from across Maadh came to Orchha's weekly market every Wednesday. He was sure his mother would come, too, on March 28.

Paaklu was the only child from the family to have got into school. Two of his brothers died of snakebite; the oldest lives with his wife in Mathbeda.

"I thought I would meet my mother and return to school the same day." He didn't know the Maoists were waiting for him.

Abduction

Around 11pm on March 27, Paaklu and his friend Jailal Kowachi were preparing to go to bed at the home of one of Paaklu's uncles in Orchha when 25-30 male and female Maoists, some carrying guns, barged in and ordered the boys to follow them. Once inside the forests, they released Jailal.

After about two hours of trekking, the rebels stopped for the night on a small, rocky plateau.

"They asked me why I spied for the police," Paaklu says. "I told them I didn't but they wouldn't believe me. They chained my legs."

His hands had been tied behind his back at the outset.

Paaklu was told he would be taken to the higher-ups the next day and produced before a people's court.

After dinner, they gave him a blanket. The days are very hot in Maadh but the nights are cold even in summer. Two armed rebels took turns to guard him, shining a torch on his face from time to time. But Paaklu was already plotting his escape.

"I was here, in the middle," Paaklu says, drawing a sketch on a piece of paper and pointing to a dot in the middle of a circle that represents the rebels.

First he loosened the knot to free his hands. "Since I was under the blanket they could not see it."

Then, he quietly unchained his legs. "They had not locked the chains; they were tied with a small wire that I could easily break."

He heard a cadre say it was about 4am and they would start moving soon. "That was when I decided to take the risk."

Paaklu mustered all his courage, remembered his mother, and counted silently: "One, two, three…."

Escape

The armed guards were on the other side. He removed the blanket, leapt to his feet, jumped over the cadres sleeping behind him and vanished into the forest before his abductors could react.

"I ran as fast as I could. They were chasing me but I did not look back."

While running, he removed his white half-trousers and T-shirt so the rebels could not see him. "I ran and ran till I saw the first rays of the sun. I was heading west but I needed to turn around — Orchha was to the east."

After a while, he sensed he had left his pursuers behind. It was the dawn of March 28, the day he had hoped to meet his mother.

"I must have been about 30-35km southwest of Orchha," Paaklu says. He knew it was safe to move only at night.

Paaklu climbed up the higher ridges, for "going up was safer". He hid in a rocky burrow through the day and began his descent in moonlight. From the hilltop, he sighted a tin roof in the valley below — it was the school at Mandali, a hamlet 5-6km from Orchha.

"I walked several hours. It was cold and I had no clothes on." March 28 was about to end. It had been over 24 hours since his escape. He was thirsty, hungry but not yet safe.

When the sun was overhead on March 29, he could see Mandali. "It has a pond. I was thirsty but did not drink the water. I feared being seen."

Paaklu hid himself under a wooden structure near the pond, waiting for sundown. "I kept telling myself the ordeal would end soon."

At dusk, he crossed Mandali and hit the forest path to Orchha. After an hour, he saw a hand-pump. He was almost there.

When he saw the first hut, he went in and borrowed a towel to cover himself. "The woman gave me rice gruel — my first meal in two days. I had turned black with dust and mud."

The police flew him to Narayanpur on March 31.

No way home

On April 8, the Maoists issued a pamphlet branding Paaklu a police informer like his mentor Kamlu Ram Wadada, whom they had killed in late 2010. Wadada had taught Paaklu at his village school and helped him secure admission to the Narayanpur school.

Shrivastava, the Narayanpur police chief, insists that neither Kamlu nor Paaklu was an informer.

Paaklu has taken up a labourer's job at Orchha. He plans to continue studying, which is what Wadada would have wanted. "But I want to make a career in sports."

He knows he can't return home. He has to be on his guard for ever.

"Once here, we can't go back," says Paaklu's uncle. "Those who try, risk 'execution'."

Paaklu is sad that he could not meet his mother. He knows that perhaps he never will.

It's a reality Paaklu says he must accept. "I am in a different world now. Maadh is behind me."

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