2 villagers butchered by Maoists

Jamshedpur, Aug 29: Two villagers were slaughtered by CPI (Maoists) who branded them as police informer in Sonua, around 120 km from here, in extremist-hit West Singhbhum district, police today said.

A group of 30/40 armed Maoists, in fatigue, arrived in village Lonjo village and dragged one Jainsingh Jamuda forcibly out of his house before locking the doors of villagers in the neighborhood around 9.30 pm yesterday, Sub-divisional Police Officer (Chakradharpur), Ajay Kerketta said.

The Maoists slit the throat of Jamuda and dumped the torso on nearby road while threw the severed head a little distance away, he said. After committing the crime, the naxals went to adjacent Kudaburu, which was about a km from Lonjo, and dragged out one Logo Lohar in a similar fashion, Kerketta said adding Lohar was taken to a nearby jungle, where Maoists slit the throat.

The rebels similarly dumped the torso on a culvert while the severed head was flung some distance away, he said stating that some posters recovered from the spot claimed that the two were killed for being police informers.

Denying the charges of the Maoists outright, Kerketa however said the victims were innocent and did not have any link with police force.

While Lohar was a blacksmith and dealt with making plough, Jamuda was a small farmer and also did petty work for livelihood, the police officer said.

Kerketta said continuous anti-naxal operation in the naxal-hit areas of Saranda left Maoists with no place to hide and commit such heinous crime with the sole objective to terrorize villagers.

PTI