The country recently witnessed disturbing events related to fresh Maoist killings in Chhattisgarh. The killings are being viewed as an aftermath and revenge tactic following the police encounter of the Maoists, where 7 Maoist leaders were killed, including a 20 lakh bounty leader in a gunfight in Telangana’s Mulugu District. It has been assessed as one of the most violent and fierce gunfights in several years between security personnel and the Maoist groups.
Two gruesome murders in two days
Maoists immediately jumped to a response for causing fright amongst the villages and killed two women in two consecutive days over the suspicion of being a ‘police informer’ in two separate incidents in Bijapur. On Saturday night, Yalam Sukra, an inhabitant of the village Lodedh, which lies under the Madded Police Station jurisdiction in Bijapur, was abducted by a small group of Maoists and taken to a nearby hill in a jungle, 3 km away from her house, where her throat was slit by them. Her body was reported to be discovered on Sunday morning.
The Maoist of the Madded Area committee made claims on the murder committance by dropping a note on her body, which had been written in red ink, warning that she was killed as a punishment since she may have been a police informer and had been sentenced to death on Friday by the People’s Court of the Maoist. The group of Maoists had also made claims that the information she was supplying to the police, perpetuated Telangana’s Greyhound Forces to conduct an anti-Naxal operation on the Bijapur-Telangana Border.
Another similar horrifying murder had been reported in the same locality through another group of Maoists on Friday, a day before Yalam Sukra’s murder, of a 45-year-old woman, named Laxmi Padam of Timapur Village, who had been cohabiting with her 3 children and her husband. It is said that her family members tried to intervene to prevent her from getting killed, but they were assaulted by the Maoists and pushed away. According to the preliminary information received on the matter, on the day of the incident, a group of Maoists stormed inside the house of the victim, strangling her to death in front of her kin and dumped her body in her courtyard to engrave their message of despotism and hatred towards the government, the army, and their supporters.
The fear of the Red Corridor
Immediate search operations have been launched in the area for tracing the assailants as soon as possible. There have been about 60 killings this year by the naxalite movement in separate places of the Bastar District, including Bijapur in Chhattisgarh, which lies under heavy influence of the naxalites despite the army control. The People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army has so far conducted numerous violent attacks on the Indian Government, the Indian army, and the civilians, which have resulted in the victim deaths of 4000 civilians and 2500 army personnel since 2000. ‘The Red Corridor,’ also often referred to as the Red Zone, is located in the Central, Eastern, and Southern parts of India within the State of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, and West Bengal.
