Jharkhand villagers form anti-Maoist force - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

The locals in Jharkhand's Latehar District have created an anti-Maoist village defence committee with the help of the police to promote self-defence among the people living in Maoist-infested villages. The main task of the force is to patrol the highway by night to give protection to vehicles. "With the permission of Commissioner of Police, this Village Defence Committee is formed. The work of this committee is to ensure the safety of roads and villagers and to take action against Maoists," said Latehar Station House Officer (SHO) Vinay Kumar Singh. With the formation of this Committee, the villagers are also getting employment as they get paid daily wages for conducting night patrols. Committee members are provided with spears, shoes, raincoats, whistles, etc. for patrolling. "Earlier, we were some 26 men for this task but something went wrong and some people quit. Now we have again started it and the number of people involved has been raised to 25. We do patrolling from 6 to 9.30 in the night (local time)," said Baiju Rav, a member of the village defence committee.