Bodies of two Maoists lynched by villagers exhumed

Sources in the police said the Maoists were Area Commanders of the CPI(Maoist) outfit.

They were said to have reached Lawadag village in Lohardagga district to collect levy (tax) from contractors engaged by the state government to execute development work.

But 250-odd tribal villagers of Lawadag, armed with bows and arrows, surrounded them. ‘‘After beating them to death on the spot, they took away their weapons and buried them,’’ said Lohardagga SP Manoj Kaushik.

The weapons of the two Naxalites have not been recovered as yet. The report of the post-mortem examination conducted at Sadar Hospital in Lohardagga, was yet to be made public.

A tribal leader told The Indian Express that in Jharkhand the synonym of the Salwa Judum is Sendra which had spread in many parts of the state.

Additional DEG RC Kaithal said that in the past two years, more than two dozen Maoists were lynched in East Singhbhum, West Singhbhum, Lohardagga and Gumla districts. Much like Salwa Judum activists who get police patronisation in Chhattisgarh, Sendra members were being backed by the Jharkhand police, the source added.