Maoists kill 11, burn homes in Bihar revenge
Patna, Feb. 18: Two days after their attacks killed 24 securitymen in West Bengal, the Maoists stormed a tribal village in Bihar’s Jamui district close to the Jharkhand border and killed 11 villagers by first setting their houses on fire and then firing indiscriminately and setting off explosives late on Wednesday night.
The attack, the second biggest in Bihar since the October onslaught that killed 14 villagers in Khagaria district, appears to be an act of revenge by the left-wing rebels for the alleged disappearance of eight of their cadre from this village, Phulwaria Korasi under Sikandara police station, since January 31. But sources with some knowledge of the area, which is 210 km from Patna, said the bloodshed could also be the result of land struggles which are rife there.
Maoist leaders had recently claimed that their missing cadres were killed by the villagers, but the police had denied any such incident. This accusation by the Maoists had made the villagers fear an attack, and forced them to roam around armed with bows and arrows for the past few weeks.
The predominantly tribal village of some 5,000 people was surrounded by nearly 100 Maoists armed with guns and explosives around midnight Wednesday during the rebels’ day-long, five-district shutdown in Bihar. Bihar DGP Anand Shankar said 10 villagers’ bodies were recovered, eight of whom belonged to the Koda tribe. Mr Shankar visited the village with state home secretary Amir Subhani and ADG (headquarters) U.S. Dutt.
"It is learnt that the village was attacked by firing and explosives because the villagers had been unwilling to support and join the Maoists for a long time," Mr Dutt said in Patna.
Sources said while nearly a dozen villagers had gone missing since the midnight attack, dozens of villagers fled their homes for fear of a second strike. Most villagers complained on Thursday that they had got no help from the police during the attack even though the local police station is just 3 km from this village.
The Nitish Kumar government has announced an ex-gratia grant of Rs 1.5 lakh to the next of kin of each villager killed in the attack, which came just a day after the Bihar police said it was averse to carrying out armed operations against the Maoists.
Anand S.T. Das
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