Nuapada/Boden: In a gruesome incident, Maoists shot dead a youth of Patadaraha Dhobaghat village under Boden police limits in Nuapada district suspecting him to be a police informer after conducting his trial in ‘praja court’ Monday, police said Tuesday.
Family members guarded the body of Gajapati Majhi till dawn and carried it in a sling trekking 8 km on a hilly terrain to reach Boden police station where they lodged a complaint.
Police seized the body and sent it for post-mortem. A case was registered in this connection and some papers were seized from Gajapati’s person.
The handwritten papers purportedly written by ultras claimed Gajapati worked as a police informer.
The incident occurred when Gajapati was asleep at home Sunday. Armed Maoists raided his house and abducted him, his brother Narayan Majhi said. While picking up Gajapati, they also took two of his nephews along with them.
The following day, they called a meeting of villagers where they conducted a ‘praja court’ posing questions to Gajapati over his alleged role as a police informer.
The ultras alleged Gajapati worked as a police informer and provided inputs to cops about their movement and operations in exchange for remuneration.
They shot him dead in presence of the villagers at 4 pm Monday.
A tribal outfit, Zilla Adivasi Kalyan Sangha, expressed deep shock over the gruesome killing of the tribal youth. A press release was issued by its president Bhanupratap Singh Majhi and secretary Balakrushna Sabar at the district headquarters in this regard Tuesday.
If necessary steps are not taken to check Maoist menace in the district, the outfit will launch an agitation, the release said.
Patadaraha village lies in a remote corner of the district where providing basic facilities like education and healthcare to the villagers is a challenge for the government, it said. PNN