Two villagers were allegedly kidnapped and hacked to death by naxals in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh on the suspicion of being police informers, an official said Tuesday.
The bodies of Hunga Karma and Bheema Muchaki, both aged around 35 years, were found lying in a pool of blood near Bacheli railway station Monday night, Dantewada Superintendent of Police Abhishek Pallava told PTI.
The two men, who hailed from Bacheli town in the district, were kidnapped last week by a group of armed rebels, he said.
"After being alerted about their kidnapping, police teams started carrying out searches in the forest to trace them," he said.
Around 11 pm Monday, some locals spotted their bodies lying on the railway station road that passes through the forest, following which a police team was rushed to the spot and the bodies were sent for postmortem, Pallava said.
"It appears that they were attacked with sharp weapons and their throats were slit," the official said.
A Maoist pamphlet was also recovered from the spot, in which the ultras accused the duo of acting as police informers, he said.
The SP admitted that Karma was in touch with the police and had provided information related to cases of betting and gambling in the area in the past.
He, however, denied that Karma was associated any anti-naxal operations as an informant.
According to him, a preliminary probe revealed that another deceased, Muchaki, was active as a Maoist earlier and had quit the outlawed outfit after he sustained injuries in an encounter in the past.
Muchaki had availed treatment in Bacheli and since then he had been living in the same locality, where Karma was staying with his family, he said.
"Naxals may have thought that Muchaki was working at the behest of police," the SP said and denied his association with police.
A case has been registered in this connection and a search operation was launched in the area to trace the ultras, he added.
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