Maoists abduct 700 students in E Nepal

The latest round of abductions comes in the wake of appeals by a top UN official to the Maoists to stop the use of child soldiers. Louise Arbour, who is the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights, had also pleaded with the rebels to treat children with more sensitivity. But the Maoists have not heeded such calls. They have been charged with brainwashing their impressionable captives.

In the latest raids, the Maoists rounded up children from Classes 4 to 10. Their ages ranged between nine and 17.

Apart from Kanchanpur, the rebels also struck at Rolpa and Dhading in western Nepal and Ramechhap in the north-east. While the school attacks have been stepped up over the past few days, they have been in vogue for some time now. Additional Inspector General of Police Rajendra Bahadur Singh said that the total number of children abducted by the rebels has already touched several thousand.

The children and their teachers were marched away from their schools at gun-point. Past trends indicate that the rebels keep them at their camps for between four and seven days for ‘indoctrination’ and ‘people’s education’. The captives are also told that they should be prepared to join the movement full-time.

Maoists, like the LTTE, have faced criticism for having child soldiers in their ranks. The Nepalese insurgents brush aside such charges, saying that everyone in their force is there out of his free will and not because of coercion.

While village schools have been targeted for exercises like the latest one, the insurgents have also trained their sights on private and boarding schools for a different purpose—extortion. These schools have to pay up or they are paralysed by terror. According to PABSON, an apex body of private and boarding schools in Nepal, more than 300 schools have been shut down following extortion threats.