Targeted killing of civilians continues in Chhattisgarh as Maoist on March 4 brutally murdered two civilians, including a pujari of the Shiv Temple in two separate incidents in the insurgency-hit State.
As per a local digital platform report, armed cadres of the outlawed CPI-Maoist barged into the Tumdiwal village under Pungerpale station limits of Kondagaon District on March 4 and took along half a dozen villagers with them to the forests.
It’s been reported that after a brief enquiry, the ultras acquitted four of the villagers while keeping two of them along with them. Later on, one of the abducted villagers somehow managed to escape from captivity and returned to the village; however, the Maoists brutally murdered the other one.
It’s been learnt that the Maoist accused the villager of being an informer of the police before murdering him in cold blood; later, the deceased’s body was recovered near the house of village head, the deceased has been identified as Baramasi Nag.
After learning about the incident from the locals, a police party also reached the spot and recovered the body of the deceased, which was later sent for postmortem. It’s been reported that an extensive search operation has been subsequently launched in the area.
While in a separate development, the pujari of a local Shiv mandir of Mandirpara in the Bhairamgarh block of Bijapur was hacked to death by three unidentified assailants on March 4 evening.
The incident occurred when the local pujari, Rama Kadti, was preparing for the daily Aarti when around 6.30 pm, three men attacked him with sharp weapons and hacked him to death.
Later in the evening, a police team also reached the spot and recovered the deceased’s body, which was sent for a postmortem the following day. Speaking about the incident, Additional Superintendent of Police Bijapur, Chandrakant Gawarna, said that the police is probing the incident from all possible angles as no proof of Maoist connection has been established, therefore currently, we are probing it with all the possibilities, including personal enmity.
However, while the Bijapur police has maintained that no Maoist involvement has surfaced, some locals speculated Maoist hand behind the incident.
Rising scale of violence against the civilians
It should be noted that the Maoist-affected State has recently witnessed a surge in cases pertaining to Maoist violence against the citizens, and the ultras have brutally killed as many as five civilians in the last month alone.
Astonishingly most of the victims of the Maoist violence in the State are people with an ordinary background who were killed on the pretext of being police informers.
