Suspected Maoist cadres abducted a group of nine tribal villagers, including four special police officers, from Gangalur road in Bijapur district on Wednesday.According to IG (Bastar) R K Vij, the incident occured late in the evening when a group of tribals and SPOs travelling in a jeep were intercepted by about a dozen armed Naxalites near the Ponjer Nullah. “The Maoists had blocked the road with big stones and trees. The four SPOs and villagers were abducted and are believed to have been taken into nearby forests,” he added. The villagers were on their way to Gangalur from Bijapur when they were stopped. Several police parties have been rushed to the area to help track down the abducted people and utmost caution is being observed so as to avert an ambush by the extremists. “However, we haven’t had any success so far,” he added.This is not the first time that Naxalites have targeted civilian population in the area. On December 28 a group of seven tribals were abducted by Naxalites from near the Bairamgarh Salwa Judum camp in Bijapur district.Police sources claimed extremists have been targeting the tribal population in order to gather intelligence about Salwa Judum operations in the area. “Over the past few months there has been a marked increase in such incidents as we believe the Maoist cadres are trying to seek information regarding personnel deployment, force movement and other local intelligence,” a senior police officer stated.
