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Updated: Aug 31, 2019 11:57 IST

A nominated sarpanch was killed by Maoists in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district on Friday night, police said on Saturday.

“The sarpanch of Chhotegurda, Lakma Mandavi, was killed by Maoists’ small action team at around 11 pm in the night. We have registered a case and launched a combing operation in the area,” said SP Dantewada Abhishek Pallava talking to Hindustan Times.

The SP said that the reason behind the killing is yet to be ascertained.

According to sources, Mandavi was a neutral person and was not linked to any political party.

“We have information that he was killed by a small action team headed by Pradeep, who is a member of the Malangir area committee of CPI ( Maoist ). Pradeep has been recently transferred to Katekalyan area committee. No Maoist pamphlet was recovered from the spot. It seems that extortion/ demand is reason behind the killing,” said a police source.

The incident comes right ahead of Dantewada assembly bypoll, which is scheduled to be held on September 23. There are 1,88,263 voters in the assembly, out of which 89,747 are males and 98,876 are females.

The assembly constituency has a total of 273 polling centres.

In the 2018 assembly election, BJP candidate Bheema Mandavi defeated Congress leader Devati Karma with a narrow margin.

On April 9, two days before the parliamentary elections in Bastar, Bhima Mandavi and four other accompanying him in a convoy of vehicles were killed when Maoist rebels triggered an improvised explosive device (IED).