PATNA: The Maoists shot dead two men in Bihar’s southern Jamui district on Saturday after storming a high school where a dozen families of frightened villagers have taken shelter for the past seven months.
A group of about 40 armed Maoists surrounded the high school at Pacheshwari village under Barhet police station in the wee hours of Saturday and called out the names of three men from a single family. The rebels shot dead Madan Koda, 35, on the spot and abducted his younger brother, Pramod Koda, 32, whose body was found at a nearby field a few hours later.
Ranjit Koda, another sibling of the two victims, was also wanted by the rebels, but he managed to flee the spot. The Maoists had been looking for the three brothers, who they had labelled as police informers, for some time, said a police official.
The rebels, who reportedly belonged to the outlawed CPI(Maoist), came from their hiding place in the Bhimband forests nearby. They threatened the panicked villagers not to share any information about rebel activities with police and also asked the villagers to return to their homes in Kumartari village.
“A manhunt has been launched to arrest the people who carried out the murders. Combing operations have been stepped up in the area,” said Jamui SP JJ Reddy, who visited the school after the two murders came to light and then held a meeting to review the Maoist situation.
Nearly a dozen families of Kumartari village in Jamui district had fled their homes in July 2017 after an armed squad of the Maoists raided the village and abducted a woman and her two sons. Bodies of the three people – Meena Koda, 60, Bajrangi Koda, 32, and Shiv Koda, 28 – were found near the foothills a little distance from the village the next day. They were branded as police informers.
The incident prompted the panic-stricken villagers to first take shelter under the open sky in the Ratneshwar hills nearby. But the district administration later asked them to live in some vacant rooms at the high school in Pacheshwari village.