India, June 11 -- In August 2005, Basant K Ponwar moved from Mizoram to Chhattisgarh. At the time, Maoists had at least 106 districts in central and eastern India in their grip and were steadily expanding their menacing presence, prompting then prime minister Manmohan Singh in 2006 to call left-wing extremism (LWE) as the country's greatest internal security threat.

The government's fight against the rebels was flailing, largely because Maoists were trained in jungle warfare and were picking up young boys and girls from villages to train them as child soldiers. In response, the government's bloated forces were unmotivated and unfamiliar with the forested terrain of southern Chhattisgarh. Growing frustration led to misadventures such as t...