Maoists on a killing spree in Orissa

BHUBANESWAR/KOLKATA: Maoists on Thursday killed two civilians at Langalkata village under K. Balang police station in Sundergarh district, nearly 400 km from Bhubaneswar. In the posters recovered from the crime site, the Maoists said the two were given capital punishments as the acted as police informers and campaigned against the Naxal movement. The Maoist guerrillas also killed a truck driver in Koraput district after he refused to join them, police said.

On Monday, they Naxals had slaughtered three persons, including an elected village ward-member and a non-formal teacher, at Topadihi under K. Balanga police in Sundergarh district.

Meanwhile, acting on a tip-off, the joint forces on Thursday raided a forest in Lalgarh and arrested key Maoist activists, some of whom were reportedly involved in the kidnapping of an officer-in-charge of Sankrail police station, Atindranath Dutta.

Thursday's arrests of Maoist activists is considered a major success after last week's arrest of the Maoist state secretary Sudip Chongdar and four of his associates from Kolkata.

"With Dilip, we have also arrested two of his associates - Lakshmikanta Soren and Bulbul Tudu and recovered from them two rifles, 2 double barrel guns and some other weapons," West Midnapore superintendent of police Manoj Verma said.

Another Maoist activist, Uttam Mandi has been arrested from Binpur in West Midnapore district.

In a parallel raid, the Hooghly police also arrested a hard-core Maoist activist from Goghat, Ashok Singh. Singh's arrest has proved a number of intelligence agencies inputs that Maoists have also managed to sneak into some pockets of Hooghly district which are adjacent to Bankura district where Maoists have established their stronghold.

Sources said the police is conducting a statewide raid to corner the Maoist activists after the arrests of Kanchan and four of his associates from Kolkata on last Saturday.

All these activists are now in the custody of STF which is interrogating them thoroughly to extract more secret information about the modus operandi of the red ultras.

Sources also said that Thursday's raids at Lalgarh and Goghat in Hooghly districts were conducted on the basis of some inputs given to the STF by Kanchan and his aides.