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Updated: Jun 19, 2019 21:51 IST

Suspected Maoists have killed a Samajwadi Party (SP) leader after abducting him from Marimalla in Chhattisgarh’s Left-wing insurgency-hit Bijapur district, police said here on Wednesday.

Deputy inspector general (anti-Naxal operations) Suderaj P said Santosh Punem, the SP leader who also worked as a contractor, was abducted from his construction site in Marimalla on Tuesday late evening. “He was killed on Wednesday by a sharp-edged weapon by Maoists,’’ said Suderaj P.

Suderaj P said that Punem had contested the 2018 assembly elections in Chhattisgarh on an SP ticket from Bijapur. “The body has been recovered. The Maoists also set ablaze four vehicles which was engaged at the road construction site,”he added. The police said a combing operation has been launched in the jungles, where the incident took place.

Samajwadi Party spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary condemned the incident and said the ruling state government should ensure that justice was done to the affected family.

Punem’s murder comes over two months after Maoists detonated an improvised explosive device in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district on April 9 and killed Bharatiya Janata Party legislator Bhima Mandavi and four others. Mandavi was killed two days before the first phase of staggered national polls on April 11.