Naxalites set ablaze labourers' huts

Nearly 200 Naxalites raided the construction site of a river overbridge in Bihar's Sheohar district exploding bombs, opening fire and setting ablaze a few huts of labourers, police said on Monday.

Suspected CPI (Maoist) rebels descended on the construction site near Dubba Ghat on Sunday midnight and assaulted the labourers before setting on fire nine thatched huts, DIG (Tirhut range) Gupteshwar Pandey told.

They also damaged some machines, including a generator set, fired in air and exploded crude bombs to terrorise the labourers whom they warned against joining work.

The Naxalites had pasted posters near the place of occurrence a week ago directing the contractor of the Bihar State Bridge Construction Corporation Limited to meet the representatives of the banned outfit.

Pandey, who is camping at Dubba Ghat along with Superintendent of Police Ajay Kumar Mishra to supervise raids to apprehend the culprits, said the Naxalites wanted to extort a levy from the contractor for allowing the work to proceed smoothly.

No arrests have been made so far.

The incident follows the March 31 attack on a bank, block office and police station at Riga in adjoining Sitamarhi district. Though the attack was repulsed, a jawan of the special auxiliary police (SAP) was killed in the encounter.

First Published: Apr 30, 2007 11:21 IST