Patna, February 18
Just a day after the Bihar government said it would not to go very harsh against the Naxals during the ongoing “Operation Green Hunt” against them in four states, suspected Maoists raided a village under Jamui district, around 200 kms away from the state capital on late Wednesday night, killing at least 11 persons.

They also blew up a pucca house using powerful explosives and set ablaze around 30 other houses having thatched roofs. The death toll may go up as many villagers were still missing. Reports reaching the state police headquarters here said the marauders had taken some of the villagers as hostage.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the mayhem unleashed by the armed Naxals at village Phulwaria Korasi was an act of revenge. The Maoists killed all those people they suspected to be police informers. The Naxals wanted to avenge the suspected killing of eight of their men who had gone missing from the same village on January 31. The Naxal leaders believed that their men were killed by the police. Having been failed to locate their men or their bodies, the Maoist outfit operating in the area had given a 24-hour bandh call in five districts, including Jamui, on Wednesday. Even as the police claimed to be on an alert during the bandh, more than a 100 Maoists armed to their teeth raided the village at around midnight and created mayhem.

The shocked villagers said the cops deployed at a camp, a couple of kms away from the spot, must have heard the powerful blast that blew up the house and subsequent gunshots. However, no one arrived in time. All the senior police and administration officials rushed to the spot only on Thursday morning.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar rushed his DGP and Home Secretary to the village by the state chopper to take a stock of the situation and report back to him. The state administration made provisions to pay the monetary compensation to the victim families at the village. The autopsy of bodies recovered by the police was also carried out by a team of doctors on the spot.