Maoists abduct, kill commando’s dad, a police warden, in Maha

NAGPUR: A C-60 crack commando’s father, who worked as a police warden, was kidnapped from home at Titola village and bludgeoned to death with boulders late Thursday in Maoist hotbed of Gadchiroli in Maharashtra, barely hours after the anti-Naxalite force touched down at Wangeturi — the last police frontier on the state’s border with Chhattisgarh.

Maoists unleashed their brutality, just 14km off the MAC-fortified police outpost, to reiterate their warning to villagers to support their November 30 bandh call against mining activity in Gadchiroli, while sending out a chilling message of retaliation after every VIP movement on their turf.

Ten days ago, a former police informer was ambushed and killed in a similar fashion during Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde’s visit to the remote Pipli Burg police station.

The police warden, Lalsu Velda, 55, was accused by the guerrillas of tipping off the sub-divisional police officer of Hedri subdivision and acting as an agent of mining firms, as per the Maoist pamphlet signed by the Gatta organizational squad formation of Dandakaranya. The scene of crime was the restive Etapalli taluka, where the guerrillas preferred to lynch and bludgeon their target. Lalsu Velda is the 260th civilian victim of Maoists since 2009.