SOURCE: PTI
A local leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was shot dead by Maoists in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district on Wednesday, a police official said. The victim, Kailash Nag, a construction contractor by profession, had given his JCB machine for a pond digging work in his village, he said. This was the eighth killing of a BJP leader or member by Maoists in affected areas of the state in the last year.
The latest incident took place at around 5 pm in Bhurripani village under Jangla police station limits, the official said.
A pond digging work was underway in the village by the state forest department and a JCB machine of the victim Nag, a local BJP leader, was engaged in it, he said.
As per preliminary information, a group of Maoists reached the work site set the JCB machine on fire and fatally shot Nag, the official said.
Nag was a construction contractor by profession and an officer-bearer of ‘Vyapari Prakosth’ (traders cell) of the BJP in Bijapur district.
Last week, a local BJP leader, Tirupati Katla, was killed by Maoists in Toynar village in Bijapur district when he had gone to attend a wedding there.
Ahead of the Assembly polls in November 2023, Ratan Dubey, the BJP’s Narayanpur district unit vice-president, was hacked to death while he was campaigning. On October 20 last year, BJP worker Birju Taram was shot dead at Sarkheda village in Mohla-Manpur-Ambagarh Chowki district.
In June 2023, a local BJP leader was killed by Maoists in Bijapur district, while in February last year three leaders of the saffron party were murdered in separate incidents in the Bastar division, a Maoist hotbed.