Suspected Maoists killed a tribal man, branding him police informer, at the remote Pedamidisileru village in Charla mandal in the wee hours of Sunday.
The local police, however, denied having any association with the deceased and attributed the murder to a financial dispute the latter reportedly had with some militia members over “exchange of demonetised currency.”
The incident came just a few days ahead of the CPI (Maoist)’s annual People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) week to be observed by the banned organisation from December 2-8.
The police identified the deceased as Sodi Prasad, 45, of Pedamidisileru, an interior village close to the State’s border with Chhattisgarh. Some miscreants believed to be militia members of the outfit summoned Prasad to the outskirts of the village shortly after Saturday midnight and stabbed him, after a brief conversation. The assailants were also believed to have fired at him before disappearing into the forest. They left behind two handwritten letters — one in Telugu and the other in Hindi — containing stern warnings to “police informers”.
In one of the letters, the rebels claimed to have punished a person belonging to Charla for allegedly acting as a police informer.
In a statement, Superintendent of Police Ambar Kishor Jha refuted reports that Sodi Prasad was a “police informer.”
He had personal enmity with some Maoists over a financial dispute which had led to his murder, the SP said, adding that investigation into the case was under way.
