Dantewada: Naxals killed two men after accusing them of being police informers and also assaulted a group of people accompanying the duo in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district, an official said on Friday.
The incident took place on Thursday night when the two had gone to a village for finalising a marriage plan, the official said.
Three women and two girls from the family of one of the deceased, who were accompanying them, were also brutally thrashed by ultras before being released, he said.
The attack took place in a forest on the border of Dantewada and Bijapur districts, Dantewada Superintendent of Police Abhishek Pallava said.
The deceased were identified as Ashok Kunjam and his friend Bandara Kunjam, both in their mid-20s, he said.
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Ashok Kunjam along with five members of his family and the friend, all natives of Kirandul town in Dantewada, had gone to fix his (Ashok's) marriage plan with a girl of Dudi Tumnar village in neighbouring Bijapur, the official said.
They went to the village, about 30km from Kirandul, through the forest on foot and reached there on Wednesday night, he said.
After finaslising the wedding plan when they were on way back home on Thursday, they came face to face with a group of Maoists between Hiroli and Dokapara villages, Pallava said.
The ultras, suspecting them to be police informers, brutally thrashed them, he said, adding they strangled the two men to death.
Local villagers brought the bodies to Kirandul on Friday morning and informed the police, he said. A pamphlet was recovered from the spot in which the Gangaloor area committee of the outlawed CPI (Maoist) has claimed the two men were acting as "police informers" and they were killed after holding a Jan Adalat (naxals' kangaroo court).
Maoists also said the Dantewada police were responsible for the duo's death. Refuting Maoists claims, Pallava said the two deceased never had any association with the police. A case has been registered and a search launched to trace the ultras responsible for the killings, he added.
PTI report
