Naxalites kill panchayat poll candidate in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district

Dantewada: Naxalites killed a former sarpanch (village head) who was contesting the upcoming panchayat elections in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district, police said on Friday.

A group of unidentified men stormed the house of Joga Barse (52) in Aranpur village on Thursday night and hacked him to death with an axe in front of his family members, a police official here said.

After being alerted, a team from Aranpur police station was rushed to the spot and the body was sent for post-mortem, he said.

No Maoist pamphlets were recovered from the spot but prima facie it seems Naxalites committed the murder, he said.

Barse, a resident of Sarpanch Para locality in the village had served as sarpanch of Aranpur village panchayat in the past. His wife is the incumbent village head, the official said.

The victim was contesting for the same post in the panchayat elections, voting for which will be conducted in the state on February 17, 20 and 23. Dantewada district will also see panchayat elections in three phases.

Barse was earlier associated with the Communist Party of India (CPI) and joined the Congress in 2019. In the panchayat elections, which are not held on party lines, he was supported by Congress.

On February 4, a 30-year-old man was hacked to death by Naxalites in the same Aranpur area. The previous night, Naxalites killed two men, one of them their former colleague, in neighbouring Bijapur district.

Earlier on January 26, Naxalites murdered a 41-year-old man in the Bhairamgarh area of Bijapur, accusing him of leaking information about the outlawed CPI (Maoist).

On January 16, Naxalites killed a 48-year-old man in the Mirtur area of Bijapur suspecting him to be a police informer.

According to police, 68 civilians were killed last year in separate incidents of Naxal violence in Bastar region comprising seven districts, including Bijapur.