Oct 20, 2024 02:46 PM IST
The victim was distributing rice to other villagers at a ration shop in Usoor village when five unidentified persons attacked him and killed him on the spot.
The Maoists have killed a Congress worker who was a former deputy-sarpanch of a village in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district on Saturday, police said.
Police said that the incident took place at around 4pm at a ration shop in Usoor village, which comes under Usoor police station area.
Bijapur superintendent of police (SP) Jitendra Yadav said that victim, Tirupati Bhandari (35) was a former deputy sarpanch of Maoist-affected Murudbaka village, but he started living in Usoor a year ago, after the Maoists threatened them to leave the village. Bhandari served as the general secretary of the Congress party’s Usoor block unit.
“On Saturday, when the victim was distributing rice to other villagers at a ration shop in Usoor village, five unidentified attackers attacked him and killed him on the spot,” said Yadav.
The accused then fled from the spot.
“No Maoist phamplets have been recovered from the spot till now but prima facie evidence suggests Maoist involvement in the incident, but all possible angles are being thoroughly investigated,” said the SP.
A police team from Usoor station reached the site and sent Bhandari’s body for a post-mortem examination.
This killing follows a series of Naxal attacks in the Bastar division, a region comprising seven districts, including Bijapur. Between January 2023 and April 2024, nine BJP leaders were killed in separate Naxal-related incidents in the area.
