A 28-year-old former Sarpanch, identified as Korasa Ramesh of the remote K Kondapuram village in Mulugu district, was allegedly killed by Maoists in the Kottapalli forest area in neighbouring Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district on Tuesday night by branding him a ‘police informer’.
Ramesh and another tribal youth from Tippapuram of Venkatapuram mandal were allegedly detained by the ultras while they were heading to Bheemaram forest area in Chhattisgarh on a motorcycle on Monday.
They were allegedly summoned by a Chhattisgarh-based Divisional Committee Member of the outfit to the forest area.
Police said the ultras tied their eyes with clothes and forced them to walk along the forest terrain for about six to seven hours deep into the woods and kept them in captivity for the entire night.
On Tuesday morning, the rebels let off another youth but shifted Ramesh to a separate hideout in the jungle where they allegedly killed him after interrogation.
His body was found in the Kottapalli forest area early on Wednesday morning, sources said.
The deceased is survived by his wife Rajani and two children.
A grief stricken Rajani, a field level health functionary, wept inconsolably on hearing the news of her husband’s murder. Her relatives took her to the incident site later in the day.
Police sources refuted the allegations that Ramesh was an informer.
In a statement, CPI (Maoist) Venkatapuram-Wazeedu Area Committee secretary Shanta alleged that Ramesh of Barrebonda village had been working as a police informer since 2019.
“He turned into a ‘double agent’ at the behest of the local police and supplied milk powder laced with poisonous substance to Maoists in the guise of a courier, causing the death of one cadre,” Shanta alleged in the statement.
“He betrayed the party and people,” she said.
Meanwhile, in a statement issued late on Wednesday afternoon, Mulugu SP Sangram Singh Patil alleged that Maoists were killing innocent people by branding them as police informers to create panic in Agency areas with a criminal intent of extorting money from wealthy people as well petty traders and marginal farmers.
