Bijapur, Mar 6 (PTI) A local leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was shot dead by Naxalites in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district on Wednesday, a police official said.
The victim, Kailash Nag, a construction contractor by profession, had given his JCB machine for a pond digging work in his village, he said.
This was the eighth killing of a BJP leader or member by Naxalites in Maoist-affected areas of the state in the last one year.
The latest incident took place at around 5 pm in Bhurripani village under Jangla police station limits, the official said.
A pond digging work was underway in the village by the state forest department and a JCB machine of the victim Nag, a local BJP leader, was engaged in it, he said.
As per preliminary information, a group of Naxalites reached the work site and set the JCB machine on fire and fatally shot Nag, the official said.
Nag was a construction contractor by profession and an officer-bearer of ‘Vyapari Prakosth’ (traders cell) of the BJP in Bijapur district.
Last week, a local BJP leader, Tirupati Katla, was killed by Naxalites in Toynar village in Bijapur district when he had gone to attend a wedding there.
Ahead of the Assembly polls in November 2023, Ratan Dubey, the BJP’s Narayanpur district unit vice-president, was hacked to death while he was campaigning. On October 20 last year, BJP worker Birju Taram was shot dead at Sarkheda village in Mohla-Manpur-Ambagarh Chowki district.
In June 2023, a local BJP leader was killed by Naxalites in Bijapur district, while in February last year three leaders of the saffron party were murdered in separate incidents in the Bastar division, a Maoist hotbed. PTI COR TKP RSY
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