Odisha villagers detain 16 posing as Maoists

Villagers of Tangapalli in Odupa panchayat under Sadar block in Odisha’s Malkangiri district have detained 16 persons out of the 40 who had attacked their village posing as Maoists late on Monday night.

Tangapalli  villagers have detained the suspected Maoists in a school building. The detained include two women. Police was yet to reach the place at the time of filing of this report.Villagers have alleged that these men knocked on the doors of nayab sarpanch Bhagaban Padiami late on Monday night.

Claiming to be Maoists, they asked the villagers for chicken and goats. When the villagers refused to heed their demand a scuffle ensued in which three of the attackers and several villagers sustained injuries.

The villagers later seized several weapons like axes, pick axes and wood chopping tools from their possession.

However, on the other hand, the detained said that they have no links with the Red rebels and had come  in search of some persons of their village who had come to Tangapalli village.

“They knocked at my house and greeted me with ‘Lal Salaam’. I told them I had no idea of what ‘Lal Salaam’ is to which they said; “Don’t you know that we are Naxals from the forest?” I told them that you can come in the morning and I will deliver what you want. They said that we are going to take away your goats, cows and chicken. When my brother came on the scene, I managed to give them a slip and informed the sarpanch to call up the police. In the scuffle, they beat up two men, one has sustained injuries on his head. They were around 45 men, the rest have managed to flee,” said Bhagaban Padiami, the local nayab sarpanch.

“We were told by our villagers that our sister has been taken away by villagers of Tangapalli and you have to go to fetch her. So we two brothers came here to seek our sister. Now they have complained to the police that we are Naxals. We haven’t said ‘Lal Salaam’ sir,” said Deba Madkami, one of the detenus.

Naib Sarpanch Bhagaban Padiami countered this saying; “If that indeed was the case, they could have come in the day time and sorted out the issue after talking to us.”