Lalgarh, Dec. 25: The unen-ding spiral of violence in the Maoist-hit areas is taking a toll on the most vulnerable: children.

Exposed to killings and bloodshed for over a year, many children in Lalgarh and its neighbourhood are today suffering from what doctors call “panic disorder” or psychological trauma.

They are screaming out in fear in the middle of sleep, refusing to go to school and turning away friends. At least one of them has again taken to wetting her bed.

In September, 10-year-old Rakhi (name changed) had watched in horror her father being dragged away from home and shot dead in Salboni’s Ranja village.

She had suffered in silence for a few days, too shocked to react. Then the nightmare began. Sitting on the verandah of their mud hut, her mother narrated how, since then, the “devil comes to haunt Rakhi every night”.

“Almost every night it is the same story. She appears to be sleeping soundly, then suddenly she starts screaming to stop her father from being taken away,” the mother said.

“In her sleep she shouts, ‘stop them from taking father away, they will kill him’. Then she bursts into tears and wets the bed.”

Or take the case of nine-year-old Sagun Hansda and his seven-year-old brother Fagun of Goaltore.

On December 1, their father Ananda and his friend Satyanarayan were holding a meeting at home to try and unite the tribals against the Maoists.

Suddenly, a group of gue-rrillas barged into the house and, as Sagun and Fagun watched helplessly, shot dead Satyanarayan and beat up Ananda, piercing his thigh with a crowbar.

Since then, the behaviour of the two playful brothers has changed. They refuse to go to school or mix with friends.

Their 70-year-old grandmother, Bargi, said the brothers appeared to be “living in terror” all the time.

“As evening approaches, my grandsons insist that the doors be closed as they are scared of the killers returning,” said Bargi.

Calcutta-based psychia- trist Ranadip Ghosh Roy explained that this kind of behaviour was the manifes-tation of a syndrome called “panic disorder”.

“The violence witnessed by the children has caused a stress reaction in their minds, which has led to a panic disorder,” said Ghosh Roy.

He explained that panic disorder was caused by anxiety and characterised by recurring panic attacks. This would also include “significant behavioural change”.

Ghosh Roy warned that unless the violence ended in Lalgarh, “no supportive therapy or treatment will work”.

If the ground situation improves, these children should undergo therapy for behaviour modification.

“Even if they are taken away from the place of incident, it won’t help,” he said.

“They will be uncomfortable in an alien environment and to deal with the stress, they have to be treated where they have been subjected to the trauma. It is in this environment that they must be made to feel relaxed and reassured. They should be made to believe that the worst is over and they must gear up for a new and better world.”

Sometimes, a single incident can affect many children, as happened in a primary school at Jamda village in Binpur. In such a case, a “mass behavioural therapy” has to be used, doctors said.

On September 14, Maoists shot dead teacher Kartick Mahato in front of the students.

After that incident, around 20 children who witnessed the killing have stopped coming to school. “The students are so shocked that they are avoiding school,” headmaster Sadhan Chandra Maity said.

“An incident such as this is bound to affect children’s behaviour as well as their mental and physical growth,” said Apurba Ghosh, director of the Institute of Child Health, Calcutta.

“It is important that they return to school and interact with the other children or they would run the risk of developing brutal tendencies or lifelong depression.”

What Ghosh said means that an entire generation of an-xiety-ridden young men and women is growing up in a large swathe of Bengal.