RANCHI, JANUARY 3: The violence by activists of the banned Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) continued in the new year with the killing of two villagers in Bihar on New Years' Day.Chowkidar Bandhan (50), a private security guard, was killed by the ultras who slit his throat and threw the body outside the health centre in Sethia village, Lohardaga district, yesterday. The ultras struck again in Batkatti village in the district the same day, forcing 70-year-old Sukhawa Munda out of his hut and beating him to death near the village square.Both Bandhan and Munda were on the ``hit list'' of the MCC which identified them as ``police informers'', according to IG, Rameshwar Oraon. This morning, Rameshish Singh, an ex-serviceman, was robbed of his licensed gun by MCC activists in Kudu village in Lohardaga.The continuing violence by the banned outfit has left the state police worried, especially as Assembly elections are due in February-March. In its report to the state government, the state Crime InvestigationDepartment (CID) has anticipated large-scale bloodshed. During the Lok Sabha elections in October, Naxalites ``punished'' over a dozen citizens who had cast their vote defying their boycott call by chopping off their fingers.The CID is also expecting trouble in the light of the rivalry between a section of the MCC and the People's War Group. According to sources in the CID, after years of animosity, the CPI-ML (Party Unity)-turned PWG and a dominant section of the MCC seem to have buried the hatchet for a ``common goal''. But a section of the MCC dominated by the Yadavs was against the merger, causing intra-party feud, a CID source told The Indian Express.The CID report says that the PWG, with its headquarter in Hyderabad, has set up nine centres on Madhya Pradesh-Bihar border areas, including Bishanpur, Palamau and Buxar. Its activists, equipped with sophisticated arms, have the expertise to trigger explosions by landmines. The PWG blew up with landmines a police patrol vehicle in Chatra on December23, killing six policemen, the report says.It caused a blast using dynamite at a railway station on Garhwa road on December 7, at Baruna railway station in Buxar on December 24 and Bhavanathpur Block Development office in Palamau on December 28.In pockets of Ranchi, Lohardaga, Gumla, Garhwa, Palamau, Hazaribagh, Chatra, Bokaro and Giridin recorded in police files as extremist-infested more than 10,000 people, including ex-servicemen, have arms licences. However, scores of them in this belt have either given up their weapons to the Naxalites or have fled to save their lives, according to Anirudh Singh of the Bihar Ex-servicemen's Welfare Association.
