Naxals plan 'Chakka Jam' against Khairlanji killings

Nagpur, Dec 24 (UNI) Naxalite organisations plan to stage a 'chakka jam' (road blockades) on January 2 and 3, to protest the recent killing of four members of a dalit family by villagers in Khairlanji in Bhandara district of the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra.

The police have found a handwritten note in Gondi language in the pocket of one of the Naxalites killed in an encounter in Gadchiroli district on December 22, which calls upon the cadre to stage road blockades next month against the Khairlanji killings. The note, however, did not mention the places where the chakka jam will be held.

Inspector General of Police (IGP) Anti-Naxal Operation (ANO) Pankaj Gupta told UNI that the note also mentions that information of the Khairlanji incident had been 'sent to headquarters,'. The note had been found from the pocket of the Naxalite identified as Chamru Gota, deputy commander of the 'Etu Dalam', he said.

Gota was among the three Naxalites killed in an encounter in the forests in Gatpajambia in Etapalli tehsil of Gadchiroli district during a joint combing operation of the Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh police along with the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).

Mr Gupta said the Communist Party of India (Maoist) was distributing pamphlets in the district calling upon dalits to take to arms to fight against injustice. The pamphlets, purportedly issued by the 'Gadchiroli Division' of the CPI (Maoist), say that armed struggle was the only way to stop the injustice against the dalits, he said.

He said that naxalites were trying to incite the passions of the dalit youth against 'injustice' and provoke them to take to arms. This could be a deliberate ploy to attract the youth to the illegal activity since naxal organisations had been finding it difficult to make fresh recruitments into the cadre, Mr Gupta said.

Another pamphlet being distributed in the area says that the chakka jam next month would be to protest the death of 13 persons in police firing during an agitation against a proposed industrial unit in Kalingnagar (Orissa) in January 2006, he said.

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