Raipur, Aug 2 (IANS) Leftist guerrillas killed two people, including an elderly man, in separate incidents in Chhatisgarh’s southern Bastar region, police said Thursday.
Armed rebels swooped on a forested village under Bedre police station in Bijapur district Wednesday night. They took an elderly person, Majji Burga, with them and slit his throat later, a senior police officer told IANS by phone.
In another incident, a Kattam Ramesh of Dantewada district’s Konta area – on the border with Andhra Pradesh – was hacked to death by the militants.
Police believes Maoists had killed both men because they were suspected to be police sympathisers.
Maoists are holding a weeklong strike – July 28-Aug 2 – in the Bastar region, where they are believed to be running a parallel government.
The strike, which was called to observe “martyrs’ week”, has crippled life, mainly in the interiors of Kanker, Bijapur, Dantewada and Narayanpur districts, as vehicles are off the roads while civilians are venturing out rarely.
The rebels are commemorating their compatriots who were killed in recent gun battles with the police.