By IANS
Bhubaneswar : Armed Maoists set two vehicles of a businessman on fire and looted his home in Orissa’s Malkangiri district, a senior police official said Saturday.
Panic gripped the area, particularly among businessmen and traders, as Friday midnight’s incident came just two days after a Maoist-sponsored shutdown in the tribal dominated district, nearly 620 km from state capital Bhubaneswar.
Malkangiri District Superintendent of Police Satish Kumar Gajbhiye said about 25 armed Maoists and their tribal sympathisers from nearby villages thronged the village known as MV-72, under the MV-79 police station, Friday midnight and looted 50 bags of rice and an equal number of fertiliser bags from Laki Biswas’s house and later beat up Biswas’s son.
“The guerrillas also set one jeep and a truck ablaze before disappearing from the scene. They were looking for Biswas and before the looting they threatened his family members with dire consequences,” the police official told IANS.
Biswas’s family sources said the Maoists disconnected the telephone and power connection in the home and also looted gold ornaments at gunpoint.
Police have registered a case following Biswas’ complaint and launched combing operations even as patrolling has been intensified in the village.