The jaded and seemingly endless debate on the Maoist menace has been revived with the union home minister announcing the ‘killing’ of three important Maoists in Chhattisgarh and praising CRPF jawans for their courage and skill. To his acute embarrassment, and certainly not for the first time, reports from the ground appeared to contradict him. While a team of Chhatisgarh Congress described the encounter as ‘completely fake’, a report in The Indian Express today under the headline, Top Naxals are two 15-year old toppers, questions the senselessness of it all.