Maoists blow up panchayat building in Aurangabad

AURANGABAD: The Maoists blew up a panchayat building and a nearby cellphone tower in village Judahi under the Madanpur police station area in Aurangabad district on Monday evening. The incident happened merely 11days after the Maoists killed four members of a family under Dumaria block in neighbouring Gaya district on November 13 night.
According to sources, the Maoists planted explosives from all four sides of the ‘panchayat sarkar bhawan’ of Dakshin Umra panchayat and blew it up, damaging the building badly. After that, they attacked a cellphone tower located next to the panchayat building and set it on fire. The generator set of the tower was destroyed.
It was the first Maoist incident after the announcement of panchayat elections in the district.
The Maoists had also planted an IED probably to target the police force. But the police discovered the IED, which was defused later by the bomb disposal squad. Sources said the IED was powerful.
Aurangabad superintendent of police (SP) Kantesh Kumar Mishra said two Maoist banners had been recovered from the spot. “As per the message written on the banners, the Maoists carried out this operation in protest against the encounter in Sukma and the arrest of Jharkhand’s top Maoist commander Prashant Bose alias Kishan Da and his wife Sheela Marandi,” he said.
“The entire area has been sealed and raids are on to trace the Maoists. We have also sought cooperation from neighbouring districts in this regard,” the SP added.
Both Bose and his wife were arrested in a joint operation conducted by the Jharkhand Police and CRPF. In response to their arrests, the Maoist groups have announced three days of Bharat Bandh from Monday to Thursday.
An IANS report quoted locals as saying that the Maoists threatened them to keep silent. “Though we informed the police about the presence of the Maoists, the security forces did not come apprehending ambush,” they said.