On a quiet Sunday evening in November 2005, a journalist in India's Bihar state received a panicked phone call at home.

“The Maoists have attacked the prison. People are being killed! I’m hiding in the toilet,” an inmate gasped into the mobile phone, his voice trembling. The sound of gunshots echoed in the background.

He was calling from a jail in Jehanabad, a poverty-stricken district and, at the time, a stronghold of left-wing extremism.

The crumbling, red-brick, colonial-era prison overflowed with inmates. Spread across an acre, its 13 barracks and cells were described in official reports as "dark, damp, and filthy". Originally designed for around 230, it held up to 800 prisoners.

The Maoist insurgency, which began in Naxalbari, a hamlet in West Bengal state in the late 1960s, had spread to large parts of India, including Bihar. For nearly 60 years, the guerrillas - also called Naxalites - have fought the Indian state to establish a communist society, the movement claiming at least 40,000 lives.

The Jehanabad prison was a powder keg, housing Maoists alongside their class enemies - vigilantes from upper caste Hindu private armies. All awaited trial for mutual atrocities. Like many Indian prisons, some inmates had access to mobile phones, secured through bribing the guards.

“The place is swarming with rebels. Many are simply walking out," the inmate - one of the 659 prisoners at the time - whispered to Mr Singh.

On the night of 13 November 2005, 389 prisoners, including many rebels, escaped from Jehanabad prison in what became India's - and possibly Asia's - largest jailbreak. At least two people were killed in the prison shootout, and police rifles were looted amid the chaos. The United States Department of State's 2005 report on terrorism said the rebels had even "abducted 30 inmates" who were members of an anti-Maoist group.

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