At Kacchapal village in Narayanpur district, Chandrika Vadde at her two-room home constructed below the federal government’s housing scheme for residents of Maoism-prone areas.
| Photo Credit: Vijaita Singh
Gouri Kudiyam, 30, remembers her husband Anil Punem fondly. They met on the job within the dense forests of Bijapur in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar district and married in 2022. They had trekked, cooked, and confronted bullets collectively. Until 2025, when Punem was killed in an encounter with safety forces. On January 15 this yr, Kudiyam, like a whole lot of different Maoist cadres, surrendered earlier than the police. All Kudiyam has of Punem is {a photograph} from their wedding ceremony day, saved as her telephone’s wallpaper.
“We could marry but not have children. All the cadres had to undergo vasectomy on the instructions of senior leaders,” she says. She thinks again to what made her be a part of the Maoists: “I was impressed by their dancing and singing troupes. I joined them when I was 16.”
Published – April 10, 2026 05:20 am IST
