Chhattisgarh: BJP leader stabbed to death by Maoists in Bijapur

A local Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) leader was killed in a deadly attack carried out by the cadres of a Small Action Team (SAT) of the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) in insurgency-hit Bijapur on Friday, March 1.

According to the details that emerged, BJP leader and ‘Janpad Sadasya’ Tirupati Katla, a resident of Bijapur, was stabbed multiple times by the outlaws when the latter was returning from a wedding ceremony on Friday. Katlu who received grave injuries during the attack, was soon rushed to a private hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries.

The incident took place in the Toynar area of Bijapur when the SAT team members of the Maoist outfit launched a surprise attack on Katla with knives and other sharp edged weapons. The attack on the BJP leader occurred just around 700 metres from the Toynar police station. It’s been learned that the deceased leader was on the hit-list of the Maoists for quite some time, and the extremists were in search of an appropriate opportunity to target him.

The killing of the BJP leader has once again sent shockwaves into the Bijapur region, where the Maoists carried out a similar attack on another BJP leader, Neelkanth Tekam, former BJP president of Usur block. Neelkanth was killed by the Ultras when he arrived to attend a wedding in his ancestral village in February last year.

Reacting to the killing of Tirupati, Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai, while offering his condolences to the family members of the deceased party leader, asserted that the battle against the Naxals is in a decisive stage and his government will never allow the intentions of the extremists to succeed.

It is noteworthy that as many as six leaders associated with the saffron party have been killed in separate attacks carried out by the extremists in a year’s time. The killing includes the then vice president of Narayanpur district unit of BJP, Saagar Sahu, who was shot dead at his home just four days after the murder of Neelkanth.

A day after the murder of Sahu, the extremists also killed an ex village head associated with the BJP near Handawada waterfall in Dantewada district. The assault on the BJP worker occurred while he was returning to his village when members of the banned outfit hacked him to death.

In another incident that occurred in November last year, a SAT team of the proscribed outfit killed then BJP vice president Ratan Dubey. The Maoists carried out the attack when Dubey was campaigning in Kaushal Nagar area before the assembly elections. Days before the killing of Dubey, the Maoists had also killed a BJP worker of Mohala Manpur area.

The issue of targeted killing of its party workers before the State assembly election was then aggressively raised by the BJP, whose State and central leadership had accused the then Bhupesh Baghel led Congress government to going soft against the Ultras.