When Madkam Hunga was arrested under UAPA in the 2017 Burkapal Maoist attack case, he had a wife — and two little girls aged 3 and 1. After being acquitted along with 112 other accused last weekend, he went to visit his mother.
“There was a girl sitting next to my mother, and I asked who she was,” Hunga said. “When my mother replied it was my younger daughter, I could not hold back my tears.”
In the five years he spent in prison, Hunga has lost part of his vision, much of his strength, and his wife. “Tribal custom gives women the freedom to leave a marriage. With no one to take care of them, why would they stay? Almost all our wives left for other men,” he said.
Acquitted for lack of evidence five years and two months after they were jailed, the tribal men of Burkapal have returned to upended lives, empty homes, and a bleak future. On Saturday, when The Indian Express visited the village, the men were sitting together discussing finances — and the lives of the children their mothers had abandoned in the village.
“In these five years, everyone has had to spend much more than they can afford. We are working out who owes how much to whom,” Hunga said.
Burkapal, located 72 km from the district headquarters Sukma, is close to where Maoists killed 25 personnel of the CRPF's 74th battalion on April 24, 2017, and looted their weapons and ammunition. Police subsequently arrested 127 people, including 6 minors, from several villages in the area for allegedly…
