Tribals rush to make photo identity cards in bid to save their lives

Dantewada, Chhattisgarh: Panic-stricken tribals in Chhattisgarh's restive Bastar region have been desperately knocking on the doors of photo studios. They believe they will be branded as Maoists and killed by the security forces unless they can produce photo identity cards.

While police dismiss their fears as completely unfounded, the tribals are taking no chances, with the Border Security Force and Indo-Tibetan Border Police joining the state police and Central Reserve Police Force in the past week for a renewed offensive against the rebels.

Arjun Singh, who runs a photo studio in the Sukma block of Dantewada district, 450km south of here, said: "Speculation is rife that police will wipe out local people by branding them as Maoists or Maoist sympathisers if tribals fail to produce photo I-card."

He claimed that in the past 10 to 12 days, some 40 to 50 tribals had been approaching him on a daily basis to get photographs taken.

Worried residents of hundreds of villages have been travelling several kilometres on foot to reach photo studios in the hope of making photo I-cards.

The rumour comes against the backdrop of a fresh assault in the rebel-dominated interiors of the state's 40,000 square km Bastar area. It has been a Maoist-hotbed since the late 1980s.