Representative Image, courtesy: The Narrative World
In a letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the president of the Bijapur district unit of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) Srinivasan Mudiliyar has asked for Z category security cover for party office-bearers amidst the looming threat of targeted killings by Maoists, suggest media reports. According to the details of the letter, the party president of the Bijapur unit has asked for high-level security for a total of 9 office-bearers of the district including himself.
In the letter addressed to the Home Minister, which is doing the rounds on social media, Mudiliyar has cited that the party office-bearers of the district face a persistent threat of extremism as the district falls under the extremely affected districts by left-wing insurgency.
Further, Srinivasan has highlighted that a temporary Y category security cover was provided to a few partymen during the State assembly elections, which was withdrawn subsequently after the election, augmenting the threat of Maoist attack.
He further claimed that a number of party workers are on the hit list of the Maoists and are forced to constantly change their location during the night to evade possible attacks by the Maoists.
Srinivasan, in the letter, has also speculated about the reoccurrence of targeted Maoist attacks on the BJP leaders, given that they are receiving direct or indirect threats from the outlaws.
In the end, while demanding a Z security cover for a number of leaders, including the district president, vice president, Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha president, Kisan Morcha president, and others, Srinivasan asserted that the ongoing campaign of the security forces has frustrated the Maoist and there is high possibility that the extremists can carry out such attacks on the party workers.
Back-to-back killings of BJP leaders
It is noteworthy that as many as two workers associated with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi led party were brutally killed by the Maoists within a span of only five days in back to back killings that jolted the remote region of Bijapur on March 1 and March 6.
In the first incident, a BJP worker identified as Tirupati Katlu was stabbed to death by a Small Action Team (SAT) of the Maoists when the latter was returning from a wedding function on March 1.
The extremists carried out the attack only 700 metres from the Toynar police station, where they stopped and stabbed Katlu with knives and other sharp edged weapons before fleeing the scene. A gravely injured Katlu was then immediately rushed to a nearby healthcare facility by the locals, where he succumbed to his injuries.
Days later, the extremists also abducted and killed the Vyapar Prakoshtha block vice president, Kailash Nag who was reviewing a development work of the forest department’s neat Kotmeta forest area under the Jangla police station limits.
According to the reports, the Maoists, after kidnapping the BJP leader, took him to the nearby forest, where they shot him dead. It has been learned that the deceased BJP worker was on the hit-list of the insurgents who had earlier threatened him as well.
BJP Usur block president murder
It must be noted that this is not the only time that the extremists have killed a BJP functionary in Bijapur; earlier, BJP Usur block president Neelkanth Kettam was also hacked to death by the outlaws in February last year.
The horrific incident occurred when Neelkanthan arrived to attend a wedding function in Paikram village under the Awpalli police station, when he was hacked to death by the cadres of the Maded Area Committee of the outlawed CPI Maoist.
Notably, days after the murder of Neelkantha, the extremists in back-to-back attacks had also killed two more workers of the BJP, The killings included the then BJP vice president of Narayanpur district, Saagar Sahu, who was shot dead at his home by two assailants.
Further, the outlaws had also killed Ratan Dubey, another BJP leader from Narayanpur, when he was out campaigning for the party before the State assembly elections in November last year.
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