Naxalites have killed a 40-year-old man in poll-bound Chhattisgarh, accusing him of being a police informer, warned election officials not to visit polling booths to conduct voting on November 7, an official said on November 2.
As per preliminary information, Naxalites strangled the man, Muchaki Linga, with a rope on the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday and threw his body on the roadside between Galgam and Nadpalli villages in Bijapur district, he said.
They accused Linga, who was from Galgam, of acting as a police informer, he said, adding that security forces have launched a combing operation in the region to trace the Naxals.
In another incident, a press note carrying a warning for polling officials, apparently issued by the West Bastar Division Committee of the outlawed CPI (Maoist), surfaced in the district on Wednesday.
“Polling is going to be held in the area (Bijapur) on November 7 and you (poll officials and employees) are preparing for it. The West Bastar Division Committee has already issued a statement giving a call to boycott the ‘false’ elections. Bijapur has 245 polling booths and you will be coming with EVMs on November 6-7. You will be accompanied by security forces which poses a threat to your lives. Therefore, we appeal to you, keeping your safety in mind, that you should not come,” the press note said.
Bijapur is among the 20 Assembly constituencies that will go to polls in the first phase of two-phased State Assembly elections on November 7. Polling for the remaining 70 of the total 90 seats will be held in the second phase on November 17.
Bijapur district apart, elections in the first phase will also be held in the Naxal-hit Bastar division and four other districts – Rajnandgaon, Mohla-Manpur-Ambagarh Chowki, Kabirdham and Khairagarh-Chhuikhadan Gandai districts on November 7.
Maoist banners and pamphlets giving calls to boycott polls were recovered from several places in Bastar last month.
Asked about the warning, Inspector General of Police (Bastar Range) Sundarraj P. said all necessary security arrangements would be in place for the peaceful conduct of elections. The ideology of the banned and illegal CPI (Maoist) is based on mindless violence and cruelty, he said.
“In the last four decades, they (Naxalitess) were responsible for the death of more than 1,700 innocent civilians and destruction of public properties worth crores of rupees. The native population of Bastar is frustrated and annoyed with all this destructive attitude of Naxals and they are looking forward to a positive environment,” said the top official.
