MALKANGIRI: Days after threatening locals not to participate in electioneering process, left wing extremists on Friday allegedly abducted five election officials and a village chief from the cut-off area in Maoist-hit Malkangiri district.
The abducted officials have been identified as Purusottam Behera, Lingaraj Majhi, Praveen Soren, Kaminikant Si and Hrushikesh Nayak and village chief Laxman Sisa.
Sources said the officials were engaged by the district administration to receive nomination papers at the Gram Panchayat offices in the area which is close to Panasput forest where at least 30 Maoists were killed in police encounter in October last year.
However, the district administration and police are yet to confirm about the abduction of the officials.
Meanwhile, the State Election Commission (SEC) has sought a report from the district Collector on the alleged abduction of poll officials. Principal Secretary of Home Department also has asked Director General of Police to inquire into the incident and submit a report by evening.
The red rebels had earlier asked the locals in the Chitrakonda cut off area to stay away from the three-tier panchayat polls and threatened them with dire consequences if they do not comply with their orders.
For this, perhaps, not a single nomination paper for any of the posts has been filed in the cut off area since the filing of nomination papers started on Wednesday.
In other parts of the district, the nomination process is also yet to gain momentum. So far, only 110 persons have filed nomination papers in the last two days while not a single nomination has been filed for Zilla Parisad seats.
Altogether 108 Panchayats and 15 Zilla Parisad zones in the district will go into polls from February 13 while the election will be conducted in two zones that fall in Chitrakonda cut off area, on February 21.