india

Updated: Mar 28, 2019 13:39 IST

Maoists blew up the house of a former member of the Bihar Legislative Council (MLC) and BJP leader Anuj Kumar Singh in the state’s Gaya district late on Wednesday as they called for the boycott of Lok Sabha election 2019, police said on Thursday.

Singh’s uncle and his family member were beaten up during the attack in Bodhibigha village, about 80km away from the district headquarters, according to police.

An armed squad of the outlawed CPI(Maoist) also threatened the villagers with dire consequences if they failed to ensure a total boycott of the Lok Sabha election 2019 across the Magadh division of the state. Their raid of the village under the Dumaria police station continued for two hours.

They threw handbills and pamphlets calling for a boycott of the Lok Sabha election 2019 and raised slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The Maoists also threatened the village’s youth and asked them to stay away from the ongoing election campaigns of the political parties.

Gaya’s senior superintendent of police Rajeev Mishra confirmed the incident and said that police teams reached the spot early on Thursday morning and investigation is still on. The local police will lodge an FIR with this regard after their preliminary investigation.

When asked about the Maoists posters and handbills dropped in the village, Mishra said police have recovered some papers which were being circulated by the Maoists calling for a poll boycott.

Gaya Police and the central forces have also launched a search operation to flush out the rebels gathered along the Jharkhand-Bihar borders to create trouble during the elections, the SSP said.

This is not the first time that Maoists have struck the former MLC’s house at his ancestral village of Bodhibigha. They had attacked the house in 2007 and threw bombs. They had also blown up the house of Singh’s personal assistant and beaten him up him in public.

Before that, Maoists had attacked Singh’s nephew who was on his way to Dumaria from Gaya. His driver was shot dead and the nephew had sustained serious bullet injuries.

The former MLC has been on the hit list of the Maoists since 2006 for his continuous campaign against the left wing extremists across Magadh division.

“I had earlier demanded a police station at the village and the issue was raised in the assembly. The then chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi had approved the opening of a police station at Bodhibigha in 2014. But, despite the government decision neither a police outpost nor any police station came into existence so far,” Singh said.

Mishra, however, said that there is no infrastructure in the village and the police station there would not be viable. There have been adequate forces in Dumaria-Imamganj areas to control the situation, he said.

Maoists have carried out their anti-election campaign in the past as well. Last month, the they had torched a government middle school which was turned into a police camp for the election.

The rebels had dropped handbills and called for a poll boycott. The district administration and police stepped up security and intensified patrolling to ensure regular classes at the school.

Gaya Police and central forces have launched a massive combing operation in the sensitive areas of the region and the Maoists are carrying out such raids out of frustration, a senior police officer said.