PATNA: In the second execution of villagers by Maoists in Bihar in less than a month, three people of a family, accused of being police informers, were killed by left-wing rebels in southern Jamui district on Friday.
The bodies of the three victims, including a woman, were recovered by the police near the Kukurjhap dam in the Barhet police district. The faces of the deceased – Meena Koda, 60, her son Bajrangi Koda, 32, and his cousin Shiv Koda, 28 – were mutilated. Police said the trio seemed to have been battered to death with boulders.
A handwritten pamphlet left near the bodies said the three villagers were executed for being “anti-people, anti-party and police informers”. Police denied the victims were informers.
The house of the slain trio in Kumartari village, 15 km from the district headquarters, was raided by a band of about 20 armed CPI (Maoist) rebels early Friday morning. The trio were dragged to the nearby dam, where they were killed, said police.
“The three victims were not police informers. The Maoist action is suspected to be in retaliation for the killing of two of their cadres in an encounter with the police on June 18,” said inspector-general of police (Bhagalpur zone) Sushil Khopde. Arms and ammunition, including two assault rifles, were found at the encounter site, he added.
Jamui superintendent of police Jayant Kant, who visited the village after the three murders, said villagers told him that the Maoists had recently issued a warning to the family. “But the family had not brought this threat to the attention of the police,” he added.
In neighbouring Nawada district, Maoist rebels killed a woman by slicing her neck with a knife last month suspecting her of being a police informer.