Maoist guerrillas are training children in Jharkhand to plant bombs, police said Thursday, after a 10-year-old boy was killed during an exercise.
Pardeshi Lohra died Tuesday in Latehar district.
Police said he was in a group of eight children abducted by Maoists to train them to plant bombs. Some children managed to escape.
"In Jharkhand, Maoists have been exposed and in many cases women cadre have been sexually exploited. Maoists are not getting youth for their cadre, so they are inducting children to be trained for different purposes," S.N. Pradhan, additional director general of police (law and order) and police spokesperson, told IANS.
A police official involved in anti-Maoist operations told IANS that raising a "children's army" was not new for Maoists in Jharkhand.
"Earlier, Maoists were using children to get information on police movement. Now they have changed their strategy and are abducting children from villages and training them to plant bombs," the official said.
Police said there have been reports that many children in Gumla and Lohardaga districts, fearing abduction by Maoists, have stopped going to school.
According to police, Maoists have put up a poster at a Dumritarwan school in Chatra district, demanding 30 children. A school teacher spotted the poster Sep 17 and alerted police.
Maoists are active in 18 of Jharkhand's 24 districts.
