In Naxal areas, kids use Code Red

New game

Played hide-and-seek in good old school days? In Bihar parlance, the indigenous game is known as “chor-sipahi” (thief-police) where four to five children become thieves while a cop chases the chor.

But all this is passé now. In the Naxal-infested Jamui district of Bihar, the children have re-phrased it as ‘Maoist-police’ while playing hide-and-seek. And they have coined new terminology to add flavour to the conventional game.

These terms are basically code words used by Naxalites owing allegiance to the banned outfit CPI (Maoist). So often the Naxalites use these code words in the jungles of Jamui/Lakhisarai that the children, who take the cattle for grazing in the interior areas, have started pronouncing their (Naxals) lingo/code.

Sample this: Instead of saying Bhago… police aaayi (Run, the police have come), these children say, “Bhago baarat aa rahi hai (Run, the marriage party is coming). In Naxal parlance, the ‘marriage party’ stands for ‘police’.

An eyewitness, who watched these children play hide-and-seek in coded words was amused to find that these tiny tots, who could not even do the basic maths, were well aware of the language used by Maoists.

 “I saw a bunch of children, aged between eight and 12 years, playing at an isolated place in Jamui where they had come along with the cattle. (While playing) when told to run as the ‘marriage party’ (read: police) had come, one of the children shouted: Kya saath mein buddha sher bhi aaya hai? Arey bhai, maine kaha tha na ki road mein pencil gaar do? (Has the ‘old lion’ too come along with the ‘marriage party’? Didn’t I say earlier that you should dig a ‘pencil’ on the road),” the eyewitness quoted these children.

According to a senior police officer, who has worked in Naxal-hit districts, ‘old lion’ stands for jawans of State Auxiliary Police (SAP) which comprises mostly retired armymen. “The term ‘pencil’ stands for landmine detonator,” said the cop, who was earlier posted in the Reds’ safe haven.