Maoists in the Indian state of Bihar have apologised to students for blowing up their school buildings.
More than 25 school buildings have been razed to the ground by Maoists in Bihar over the last year – at least five have been destroyed in the past week.
The rebels said it was necessary to destroy them because they were being used as camps by the security forces.
On Tuesday, rebels killed 76 troops in the nearby state of Chhattisgarh in one of India’s worst-ever Maoist attacks.
Recently, students in the district of Aurangabad in Bihar appealed to Maoists not to target their schools as it "severely hampers their education".
The rebels responded to their plea by distributing hand-written Hindi leaflets in remote areas of the district which said that they regretted creating problems for children.
"But we are forced to target the school buildings as they are being used by the central paramilitary forces to launch operations against us," the leaflet said.
"The central government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister P Chidambaram has sold forests, land and mountains to foreign companies at the cost of depriving local people. Maoists are opposing it and only they are your real saviours," it said.
Police in Bihar say that schools are being destroyed because they are seen as "soft targets" by the rebels.
"They may distribute pamphlets and leaflets expressing their apology to students but there have been no assurances that they will not destroy school buildings again," senior police officer KS Dwivedi said.
He dismissed the leaflets as "a mere gimmick and ploy to divert attention".
"But we’ll keep chasing and taking action against them," he said.
In Bihar 30 out of 38 districts are "Maoists affected" and 15 of them figure under most sensitive "A-zone" category.