Maoist Mayhem: Train Station, Wedding Hall, Mobile Tower Blown up in One Day
A train station and a wedding hall were blown up and more than a dozen vehicles set on fire by suspected Maoist rebels on Tuesday, said police. However, no casualty was reported in the two strikes.
The incidents occurred on the second day of an indefinite strike call given by the rebels to protest against arrest of two of their senior leaders.
It may be mentioned that the rebels have been fighting for over three decades insisting on land and jobs for farmers and the poor. In past few years, nearly 2000 people, including police and militants, have lost their lives in Maoist violence.
Neelmani, a state police official, who uses one name, said that almost 100 suspected Maoists broke in a village in Aurangabad district of Bihar and blasted a building used for weddings.
While in Orissa, a railroad station was exploded by 20 suspected rebels and 15 vehicles were set ablaze on a highway in Sundargarh district, informed RK Bal, a superintendent of police.
Bal said that the suspected Maoists also held three railway workers hostage but freed them hours later.
According to police official SK Bhardwaj, it was clearly known if the two rebel leaders were arrested by security forces last week.
“We have verified from all our sources and the arrests have not been confirmed yet,” Bhardwaj said.
In the meanwhile, in a statement, the rebels, known as the Communist Party of India, said that the strike would continue until their two leaders were released. The strike was called in five Indian states – Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and West Bengal.
The rebels are called Naxalites after Naxalbari, a village in West Bengal state where the movement was born in 1967. They say they are inspired by Chinese communist revolutionary leader Mao Zedong.
On second day of the strike, striking again, Maoists blew up another mobile tower in Latehar district Jharkhand
The banned activists of the CPI(Maoists) went to Lali village in the wee hours, packed explosives inside the tower and triggered the blast, police said.
This is the third mobile tower to be blown up by the Maoists in two days. On Monday, they had bombed and destroyed two towers in neighbouring Palamau district.
The outfit has called for the bandh in Orissa, West Bengal, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, to demand production of two of their arrested senior leaders before a court.Police have not confirmed the arrest.
While Orissa, West Bengal and Chhatisgarh were to be exempted from the purview of the shutdown today, the bandh would continue in Bihar and Jharkhand indefinitely till the rebel leaders were produced in court, a top Maoist leader said yesterday.
