VIII. Attacks on Schools by Naxalites

The arson or bombing of school buildings by the Naxalites violates both Indian law and international law. Such attacks would violate, for instance, domestic law provisions against arson and use of explosives, among others.[91]

To the extent that the Naxalite hostilities with the government rise to the level of an armed conflict, international humanitarian law applies. Under international humanitarian law, schools and educational institutions are civilian objects that are protected from attack. They may only be attacked if, and only for such time as, they are military objectives. Military objectives are those objects that contribute to the military action and whose destruction under the existing circumstances would offer a definite military gain.[92] International humanitarian law also forbids acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population.[93]

Thus a school is normally protected from deliberate attack, unless, for instance, security forces involved in military operations were using it to deploy. In case of doubt whether a school building is being used for a military purpose, it must be presumed to be a protected civilian object.[94]

Attacks on school buildings currently being used for military purposes must be neither indiscriminate nor disproportionate. An indiscriminate attack is one in which the attack is not directed at a specific military objective or the methods or means used cannot differentiate between combatants and civilians.[95]  A disproportionate attack is one in which the expected loss of civilian life and property is excessive compared to the anticipated military gain of the attack.[96]

Methods

Naxalites have attacked school buildings and targeted people in them. For instance, on July 9, 2008, during an awards ceremony at S.S. High School in Bundu, Ranchi district, 20 to 25 armed Maoist fighters stormed the school hall filled with students and opened fire. Ramesh Singh Munda, a member of the Jharkhand legislative assembly, was shot and died later in hospital.[97] Two of his bodyguards, and an 18-year-old former student of the school, were also killed in the attack.[98]

Attacks carried out by the Naxalites on schools have tended to occur in the evening or at night. Each of the attacked schools visited by Human Rights Watch was attacked during the night. Frequently, the Naxalites use one or more improvised explosive devices, known locally as "can bombs"[99]-steel cans packed with explosive materials. In the past few years the Naxalites have depended for explosives primarily on gelignite (sometimes referred to in India as "gelatin"), as well as dynamite, potassium nitrate, ammonium nitrate, and emulsion explosives.[100]

Eyewitness descriptions of the explosives used at the attack on Gosain-Pesra Middle School in Bihar may be consistent with the Naxalites also using remote-controlled bombs that can be detonated from a distance. A local resident who lives very close to Gosain-Pesra Middle School told Human Rights Watch what happened on the night of April 14, 2009:

The "jungle raj"-the Maoists-they fixed the mines and blew up the school ...they came around 11 or 11:30 at night.... I was sleeping outside [to protect the recently harvested] corn. When the Naxalites came they surrounded me.... They were all dressed up in military uniforms that were multicolored [camouflaged] green, brown, and black. [Some wore] black cotton pagri [a head covering made of a long scarf-like piece of cloth wound around the head]. They had guns, carbines, rifles, AK-47s [assault rifles]. They had sophisticated guns. Three people on one motorbike came in the beginning. The rest of the people came on an autorickshaw [motorbike taxi] ... and in different groups walking. They [also] came in pickups. Thirty to forty people.... In every house they put two or three cadres. They spread mines over [the school] then they went to the bridge and set off the blast... It took around 30 to 45 minutes to plant the mines and between 12 or 12:15 a.m. it was blasted.[101]

The explosives used during the attack on Gosain-Pesra collapsed half of the two-story structure to the ground (see figure 1). Some explosions cause far less damage, however. At Barwadih Primary School, for example, the explosions were quite small. One parent, who has two sons at the school, described the damage: "The wall [of one of the toilets] was cracked and collapsed. The toilet has become useless now.... The ceiling of the kitchen was blown up. And the septic tank of the toilet was also damaged. And the wall of the school was cracked" (see figure 2).[102]

But even a small explosion can cause structural damage to a building sufficient to make it unsafe for student use. As described in more detail in the case study in chapter VI, although the two explosions at Belhara High School caused only small holes in the floor and walls of the school, the explosions also created cracks that ran all around the building, prompting local residents to consider the building too dangerous for classes to continue inside.

Motivation for attacks

The Naxalites justify their attacks on schools on the grounds that all the schools attacked were being used by the government security forces and therefore legitimate military targets. Our investigation found this claim to be false. To the contrary, our research found that the Naxalites have attacked numerous schools that were not occupied by the security forces at the time of the attack. Instead, the Naxalites appeared to be targeting schools because they are normally undefended government structures whose damage or destruction maximizes publicity and spreads terror among the local community.

Figure 1: The damage caused to the new school building at Gosain-Pesra by a series of explosions set by Naxalite fighters on April 14, 2009. © 2009 Bede Sheppard / Human Rights Watch

In an anonymous article in CPI (Maoist) Information Bulletin in November 2008, in reaction to the Human Rights Watch report, "Being Neutral is Our Biggest Crime: Government, Vigilante, and Naxalite Abuses in India's Chhattisgarh State,"[103] the author defended the Naxalites' attacks on schools:

Destruction of school buildings by Naxalites is another issue that HRW [Human Rights Watch] gets concerned about. It asks Naxalites not to destroy school buildings despite its own recognition of the fact of police occupation of school buildings and using these as camps for carrying out combing operations against Naxalites. In fact, never before has school building activity taken up on such a grand scale and fast pace in the remote areas of

Dantewada, Bijapur and other Maoist stronghold areas of Chhattisgarh as after the launching of salwa judum [a state-supported vigilante group aimed at eliminating Naxalites]. This is with the sole intention of setting up police camps under the government policy of carpet security system. School buildings are like military fortresses providing defence for the security forces. Maoist attacks on school building should be seen in this specific context instead of blaming them of disrupting education to children when the very purpose of these buildings is different. In fact, Maoists had explained in 2006 itself why they were destroying the school buildings[:]

"As for destroying schools used by CRPF as their camps, neither the people nor our Party think it is wrong. The schools, once they are occupied by these forces, are transformed into torture chambers and concentration camps and there is no hope that they will once again be used as schools in the near future.... Education of the adivasis [tribal communities] is not affected by destruction of school buildings used by the security forces but by the destruction of entire villages (up to 900 villages had been uprooted since June 2005) by the state police, para-military forces and Salwa Judum goondas [thugs] with active police support"[104]

In the same issue of the CPI (Maoist) Information Bulletin, editorial comments on another article regarding the conflict in Chhattisgarh, stated: "No school was destroyed by the Maoists if it was not used by the police as its camp. You cannot show a single instance where we had destroyed a school that was really meant for education purpose."[105]

Figure 2: The damage cause to the toilet block at Barwadih Primary School, by an explosive device left by Naxalite fighters on April 11, 2009. © 2009 Bede Sheppard / Human Rights Watch

Such claims are also made by the Naxalites at the scene of the attack. For example, following the explosions at Belhara High School, local residents heard the insurgent fighters shout "Down with the police camp!" although students told us that the school was not in fact occupied at the time of the attack.[106] Similarly, an eyewitness told Human Rights Watch that prior to blowing up Gosain-Pesra School, which the police were not occupying at the time,[107] the Naxalite fighters had told her "that the building is not for children's study but to [host] the police."[108]

This justification-that the Naxalites are merely attacking schools used by security forces engaged in counter-insurgency activities-is taken at face value by many government officials, journalists, NGO workers, and the broader public. For example: the chief government official in charge of education in Jharkhand told Human Rights Watch:

I have a sense, but I don't have supportive data, that unless schools are used to house police forces, schools are left out of the Naxalite situation. The basic [concern] is that public common buildings could be used for [hosting] police.... If the building is a school, then they target the school. As such, I don't see that schools are targeted on their own.[109]

Human Rights Watch recognizes that some attacks carried out against schools were indeed conducted while security forces occupied the building. For example, in the very early hours of April 15, 2009, Maoist fighters attacked a government school being used as a camp by the Border Security Force (BSF) in Dhansa valley, Rohtas, in Bihar,[110] and on August 25, 2009, Maoists opened fire on a CRPF camp based at a school in Bundu, Ranchi, in Jharkhand.[111]

The lack of public government monitoring means it is incredibly difficult to get clear information on the extent and pattern of Naxalite attacks. Nonetheless, a combination of Human Rights Watch's own on-the-ground investigations and a survey of public news sources suggest that in at least 25 attacks on schools carried out in Bihar and Jharkhand in the year between November 2008 and October 2009, there were apparently no security forces present at the schools at the time of the attacks.[112] In some attacks, the Naxalities also stole school property-such as the school desks and benches from the old school buildings at the Gosain-Pesra Middle School-which is the unlawful seizure of non-military property in violation of international humanitarian law.[113]

Some observers have suggested that the Naxalites view the school buildings-and in fact any well-built structures-as threatening because of their possible future use by the security forces in launching attacks. For example, the Secretary of Human Resource Development in Bihar told us:

Once a pucca [permanent] construction comes in a rural area, in the past the [Naxalites] take it as a threat. They feel that if any building is there then the police can come and ... this building will be used for police forces. This is the normal apprehension that we have seen on the ground.[114]

A member of the CPI (Maoist) Central Committee from Chhattisgarh, known as Comrade Kosa, in an interview criticizing the methods allegedly used by the government to suppress the Maoist movement in his state said: "Huge funds are sanctioned for the construction of pucca school buildings so as to serve as camping places for the police and central forces."[115] 

Attacking a civilian object because of possible future use as a military objective is nonetheless a violation of international humanitarian law.[116]

Human Rights Watch finds it likely that most Naxalite attacks on undefended schools are motivated by the relative ease that such "soft" targets can be attacked and the publicity garnered in doing so. Schools are often the only government building present in the rural areas where the Naxalites have greater influence and ease of movement. Moreover, schools are a high-visibility target and attacking them is likely to both increase media coverage of the Naxalites' activities and spread fear and intimidation among the local communities.

As one government official explained, "If they want to attack any government infrastructure then a school building is very handy, because they are all over now.... This is one place were the government gives no resistance. If you attack a police station, you will get resistance. But in a remote area a building with no security is very easy [to target]."[117]

One local security analyst viewed the anxiety that some may feel about the potential for lost educational opportunity as part of the apprehension created among the local population. He told Human Rights Watch:

When the [security] operations are over [the security forces] leave the place. Then the Maoists try to show, "you were supporting them!" They have this feeling that schools were used with the support of local population so they want to frighten them, so they blow up the schools. What they want is first of all to make the people afraid of them, and the first thing to do is hamper the education, and it as from this they can have the youth joining them. What happens when you attack these schools is students stop going and there is a fear. [There is] not the same fear created if you attack [another kind of] government building."[118]

The spike in attacks on schools during the lead-up to the Lok Sabha (House of Representatives) elections in April to May 2009 illustrates this view of the attacks. During many of these attacks, the bombings were often accompanied by the posting of leaflets or graffiti slogans advocating for a general voter boycott of the elections. Ranjit Singh, an eyewitness to the bombing of Gosain-Pesra Middle School, told Human Rights Watch, "They pasted a poster in front of my house. In the morning as soon as the police arrived, the police took it down. In the poster they wrote 'Don't Vote.' [On] April 16 the vote was to take place. There was a polling station in the [old building of the] middle school.[119]

At Barwadih Primary School-where the police were not present at the time of the attack, and had in fact never stayed at the school-the Naxalites also left a pamphlet, which was then taken by the police.[120] A teacher who had heard that the pamphlet mentioned the Naxalite election boycott, explained:

[At first] it was not clear [who had carried out the attack] but then they found the pamphlet and we came to know it was done by the Naxalites. The incident took place during the time of the general elections, so it is thought that it happened to create fear among the general public and police forces. Their motive was not to cause more damage to the school because they planted the bomb below the tank of the toilets.... The Naxalites could have placed the bomb in the new building or the old building to cause damage to the school.... The Naxalites did it to terrorize people because [the Naxalites] had boycotted the election and they made the bomb explosion in the school not to damage the whole building but to create fear in the police and the public.[121]

Ram Nair, a father with two sons at the school complained: "I don't know why the Naxalites did this. It happened randomly. We don't have any enmity with the Naxalites. It just happened suddenly so it is very difficult for us to guess the reason."[122]

Slow government response

Although it is the Naxalites who bear responsibility for the attacks on schools and whose fighters and commanders should be held criminally accountable for violations of the law, it is nonetheless the responsibility of the government to respond quickly and effectively to minimize the negative effect caused to children's education. The government should quickly repair or rebuild damaged or destroyed schools. Children should benefit from both immediate psychosocial support where necessary and emergency education alternatives. The governments in both Bihar and Jharkhand are, however, failing in this responsibility.

None of the attacked schools visited by Human Rights Watch had yet received any government assistance to repair or rebuild the damaged buildings, despite the attacks having occurred between two and six months prior to our visit.[123]

Yet, according to government officials, the time to commence rebuilding should be much faster. The Secretary of Human Resource Development for Jharkhand told us that "it should be quite fast because the decision-making is decentralized. [Approximately] one month."[124] Her counterpart in Bihar told us similarly, "Getting the funds sometimes will take time, so the school might start [rebuilding] after a few weeks. But reconstruction will usually take a month, or two months.... These are emergencies."[125]

Both state governments insisted that insufficient funding was not a concern for rebuilding, and that funding for repairs and rebuilding would require no further authorization from political bodies in the respective state capitals that would cause delays.[126]

There have also been allegations of Naxalites extorting money allocated for school construction either from schools or from the construction companies.[127]