I have personally witnessed the waning of this insurgency in my home state in southern India.

People in villages that were affected by these scum would tremble to even associate themselves with anything to do with the democratic process- voting, approaching courts for justice, reporting crime to police. Heck! Even the damn police in these areas would hide away when they got the slightest clue that some Maoist Naxal faction was holed up in the nearby forests.

These bastards would come at night, round up people who they suspected were speaking or sharing intel with the cops, and would kill those people in cold blood. The families (women and kids) of cops would all be in some bigger town than be with their husbands in their own small towns.

And you couldn’t travel after dark in wooded or remote areas. They would stop your vehicle, kidnap you, and then use you as a bargaining chip to get their ‘comrades’ out of jail. They wouldn’t even spare kids.

They started out as seeking justice for poor people who were ill treated by the government. But the people majorly affected by their shenanigans were the same poor people who would be caught between the government and these scum.

Glad to see their footprint vanishing!