In the month since we published the report on the civilian killings in Bastar, there have been two more rounds of anti-Naxal encounter operations in the region, reportedly killing 16 Maoists and one constable. In early June, a 25-year-old activist named Sunita Pottam was reportedly dragged out of her house, assaulted, and arrested in relation to multiple cases. Human-rights defenders engaged in peaceful campaigns against corporatisation and militarisation in the region have been arrested and subject to violence, such as Surju Tekam, Shankar Kashyap, Oram Samlu Koram, Lakhma Koram, and Ranu Podyam. At the centre of the state’s targeting of these individuals and the surge of killings in the region, is the ongoing disappearance of land in Bastar. Maase Sodi was attending a protest against the destruction of their forest lands for a road-construction project when security forces shot her, killing her six-month-old daughter whom she was holding at the…

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