Balaghat (Madhya Pradesh): Maoists shot dead a former Sarpanch in Bhakku Tola village under Lanji police station in the early hours of Friday for allegedly working as a police informer. The former Sarpanch was identified as Shankerlal Pandre, additional superintendent of police Vijay Dabar said.
According to sources, Maoists executed the crime near a school in the village to make their presence felt 15 days before the election and their purpose clear. Sources further said that they might cause troubles to the administration in the election.
Four well-armed Maoists, including a woman, murdered the villager in Bhakku Tola village under Kosmara village Panchayat, said Kasanbai Pandre, wife of Shankarlal. She said four people knocked at the door of her house at 10pm on Thursday and called her husband and searched the house for her husband’s mobile phone. When they did not get it, they took him out of the house, she said, adding that after a while, she heard the sounds of firing.
She said she got information from the villagers that the Maoists had murdered her husband. Before leaving the place, the Maoists distributed pamphlets that Shankarlal was a police informer. In the pamphlets, they also mentioned that whosoever would work as a police informer would get the same punishment as the villagers got. Superintendent of police Sameer Saurabh, however, said Shankarlal was not an informer.
