Maoists kill 16-year-old boy for being ‘police informer’ in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district
The boy was beaten to death on suspicion of being a police informer Tuesday evening, say police.
Sukma Superintendent of Police Kira Chavan said Soyyam was still wearing his school uniform when he was killed at around 8-9 pm Tuesday. (Representational File) A 16-year-old boy was allegedly beaten to death by Naxalites in Puarti village in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district late Tuesday evening.
According to the police, Soyyam Shankar was killed on suspicion of being a police informer. Significantly, over a dozen civilians have been murdered in Naxalite violence in Sukma this year. Puarti is a Naxal stronghold and home to at least two dreaded Naxal leaders — Barse Deva, chief of People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA), and his predecessor Madvi Hidma, now the Maoist commander-in-chief for South Bastar.
Sukma Superintendent of Police Kira Chavan said Soyyam was still wearing his school uniform when he was killed at around 8-9 pm Tuesday.
“His family had shifted to Palnar (in the neighbouring Dantewada) but he had gone to Puarti to meet his relatives to mourn the death of his sister-in-law,” Chavan said. The scene of the alleged incident is barely 3 km away from a new police camp in Puarti. The camp was made in February after security forces pushed a PLGA unit further back into the dense Sukma forest.
Soyyam’s body was brought to Sukma district headquarters, where a postmortem was conducted at the district hospital. An FIR for murder has been registered at Jagargunda police station, police said.
Puarti is a few kilometres from Tekulagudem, a site of several Naxalite encounters. On January 31, two elite Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) commandos and a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawan were killed in a gun battle between security forces and the PLGA in Tekulagudem.
In April 2021, 23 jawans were killed in an encounter with Maoists in the same forest.
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