PATNA: Two Maoists were on Wednesday awarded life imprisonment for the Kareli massacre of 2011 in Bihar, in which six people were gunned down by a band of armed leftwing rebels.
A local court in the eastern Munger district that pronounced the sentences also acquitted three other accused in the case for want of evidence.
Additional district judge of Munger, Purushottam Mishra, convicted Ravindra Yadav and Musharu Yadav for the massacre in Kareli village under Dharhara police station on July 2, 2011. The judgment said there was not enough evidence against the three other accused – Dhirendra Yadav, Rajram Yadav and Rakesh Yadav – and so they were acquitted.
While an FIR was registered against 80 people who either participated in the carnage or helped its planning and execution, only five could be arrested while. The rest have been absconding since.
Nearly 30 armed cadres of the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) had swooped down on Kareli village, about 200 km from Patna, in the early hours of July 2, 2011 and brutally shot dead six men. Two of the dead men were later revealed to have been Special Police Officers (SPOs) appointed by the state police.
The rebels, who wore the uniform of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and held sophisticated weapons such as AK-47 rifles, also abducted 11 people from the village, including a 10-year-old boy. But intense pressure from police forced them to release all the 11 hostages in less than 36 hours.
The massacre was widely seen as an offshoot of the constant friction between the dominant Yadav community and several poor groups of extremely backward caste (EBC) and the tribals. Of the six slain men, four were from the EBC of Ghatwar and two were tribals.
Kareli is located just 20 km away from Kajra, where seven Bihar Military Police personnel were killed in an encounter with the Maoists in August 2010.