Bihar man gunned down, vehicles set ablaze by suspected Maoists

AURANGABAD: In a late night attack on Saturday, more than 50 heavily-armed suspected Maoists attacked the houses of BJP Member of Legislative Council (MLC) Rajan Singh and his transporter cousin Sunil Singh in Sudi Bigaha under the Dev police station area of Aurangabad district in south Bihar.

Though Rajan Singh was not at home when the attack happened, his uncle Nagendra Singh, 65 who lives with him, was shot dead when he tried to prevent the Maoists from planting an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) to blow up the houses that are adjacent to each other. In the attack, the attackers also blew up a community development building and fired several rounds on both the houses. They also torched seven vehicles — three buses, three tractors and a car — parked at the house and set ablaze the house of village chowkidar Dhananjay and carpenter Krishna Mistri’s shop at the village and at Dev Godam respectively. The Maoists had formed three groups to attack Sudi Bigaha and Dev Godam and cordon the two places located 300 meters apart, reports said. They had planted IEDS on all the incoming routes to damage police and CRPF vehicles. Superintendent of Police Aurangabad, Satya Prakash said that police have recovered and defused a huge number of IEDS and Kodex wire that had been laid on approach roads. Police and CRPF’S 153 battalion, stationed at Dev, some two kilometres west of the village, reached the place around 10pm and fired 50 rounds, forcing the Maoists to retreat, SP Prakash who reached half an hour later claimed. Nobody on either side was injured in the firing. A similar attack had been carried out by Maoists on Rajan Singh’s house in March 2013 too. Both the attacks were related to demands made of on MLC Rajan Singh, who is a big contractor in the area and on transporter Sunil Singh, who owns and runs several buses in the Maoist-controlled area. The attack was also an attempt to make their presence felt after the recent arrest of some of their leaders and seizure of the property of Maoist commander, Sandeep Yadav by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), SP Prakash said. Sandeep is a resident of Banka Bazar in Gaya district.