Naxals allegedly beat up labourers at a road construction site in Madhya Pradesh's Balaghat district, and also set ablaze some machines and a vehicle in Gariaband district of neighbouring Chhattisgarh, police said on Thursday.
Both the incidents took place on Wednesday evening and Naxals also forced the labourers in Balaghat to torch machines at the road construction site, they said.
At least 30 to 35 ultras reached the Harra Nala camp of a company, which is constructing Bithali-Pathri road in Balaghat, and threatened labourers, forcing them to torch machines like a hot-mix plant, a JCB machine, a roller and a motorcycle, sub-divisional officer of police, Baihar, Aditya Pratap Mishra said. The rebels, before fleeing the spot, also snatched mobile phones of the labourers and then forced them to leave, he said.
This is the third such incident of Naxals attacking labourers in the district, an official said.
Similar incidents took place on December 3 and 6 in Koraka and Bodaljhola areas of the district to create hurdles in the road construction projects, the official said. The ultras also left behind pamphlets calling for a bandh in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh on December 10 to protest the killing of rebels in Gadchiroli encounter, he said. A search operation has been launched to nab the Naxals involved in the incident, he added.
According to the police, the pamphlets mentioned about the killing of 26 Naxals, including prominent Maoist leader Milind Teltumbde (57), who was carrying a bounty of Rs 50 lakh, in the police encounter in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra on November 13. Balaghat's Superintendent of Police Abhishek Tiwari said search parties were continuously combing the area to trace the Naxals involved in the attack.
Meanwhile, in Chhattisgarh, the violence took place in the remote Pipalkhuta village under Amlipadar police station limits where an anicut (structure built across a stream or river to supply water to fields) of the irrigation department was being built by a private contractor, another official said.
As per preliminary information, a group of four-five ultras reached the construction site, located over 200 km from the state capital Raipur, and set ablaze a tractor, a JCB machine and two concrete mixer machines parked there, he said. After being alerted, police rushed to the spot, located deep inside a forest bordering Odisha, he said.
The construction contractors in the area had been asked to stop their works for sometime in view of the Peoples' Liberation Guerilla Army (PLGA) week observed by ultras from December 2 to 8 every year, during which they step up their activities, the official said.
The rebels often pass through the dense forest of Amlipadar area to enter Kalahandi and Nuapada districts of Odisha from Chhattisgarh.
The area has witnessed such an incident of torching by Naxals after a long time, the official said. In July this year, a man was killed by Naxals in Mainpur area of the district on suspicion of being a police informer.
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