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Maoists kill 4 on suspicion of being police informers in Gaya
Police found handwritten posters from the spot in which Maoists claimed that the four were killed for being police informers
Four members of a family in Bihar’s Gaya district were killed and their bodies hanged outside their house by Maoists, who suspected them of being police informers, police said on Sunday.
The Maoists also blew up the house using dynamite and set a motorcycle on fire, they added.
Providing further details, Gaya senior superintendent of police (SSP) Aditya Kumar said the incident came to light when local residents spotted the bodies hanging from a cow shed, outside the house, on the foothills of Maoist-dominated Maunwar village at Dumaria police station, on Saturday night.
Prima-facie, it appeared as though some of the family members were shot before being hanged, Kumar said, adding that bullet injuries were found on the bodies of two of them.
Police also found handwritten posters from the spot in which the Maoists claimed that the four people were killed for being police informers. The rebels, in the posters allegedly written by Jan Mukti Chhapakar Sena, Madhya Zone Jharkhand (Maoists), also warned other villagers of similar consequences if they opted to help the police, the SSP said.
Police believe that the four people, aged between 28 and 34, were killed for sharing information which led to the death of four Maoists in an encounter in Gaya on March 16.
The Maoists, however, claimed in the posters that their associates were not killed by security personnel but “poisoned” by the concerned family.
The deceased were identified as Satyendra Bhokta, his wife Manorma Devi, Mahendra Bhokta (Satyendra’s brother) and his wife Sunita Devi.
Media reports suggested that the Maoists stormed the village at around 12.30 am and dragged the men to a nearby forest. They thrashed the two before shooting them. The wives of the brothers were reportedly later strangulated to death.
The incident reportedly took place barely 100 metres away from a CRPF camp at Chakarbandha.
An FIR has been registered under section 302 (murder) of Indian Penal Code and The Explosives Act and a search operation has been launched in Gaya and adjoining Palamu district of Jharkhand to trace the rebels, the SSP said.
The bodies have been sent to Anugrah Narayan Medical College and Hospital in Gaya for post-mortem and the reports are awaited, he added.
