On Red trail, STF shoots villagers

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On Red trail, STF shoots villagers

MAHASAMUND: Bullet holes mark the mud wall of a cramped dark kitchen in Lendigidipa village. On Saturday, jawans of the Chhattisgarh police's Special Task force barged into this house, while pursuing Maoists during an encounter, and instead shot dead two villagers, a 40-year-old farmer, Gautam Patel, and Dau Sidar, a deaf and mute farm worker. 

"Twelve of us were in the fields plucking coriander plants when we heard some gunshots. Someone said it could be Naxals. All of us fled in panic," said Uttam Patel, Gautam's younger brother. 

The four brothers live in a large house around a courtyard. An agitated Uttam demonstrates how he came running inside the courtyard followed by a jawan. "He held my arm and demanded to know if any Naxals had been given shelter in the house. I shook with fright. Just then Dau also entered the courtyard, and ran all the way up to the kitchen, chased by another jawan, who fired bullets at him." 

More jawans barged into the house, narrates Himadri Patel, Gautam's wife. She saw them fire bullets in the direction of the kitchen, one of which she said hit the jawan inside. 

"As the injured jawan stepped out of the kitchen in pain, the other jawans crashed into the kitchen. My brother was crouching under the ledge. They rapidly pumped bullets into him even as I pleaded outside, 'Maharaj, Naxali nahi mera bhai hai'. (He is not a Naxal, he is my brother)," says Uttam. 

The family claims a jawan instantly showed remorse over the killing, exclaiming, "Hey Durga maiya, pehli baar bekasur aadmi ko maar diya. (Oh Mother Durga, for the first time I have killed an innocent man)". 

It appears the jawans arrived in the village while pursuing a woman Maoist. According to the police, more than 200 STF personnel had engaged in a 3-4 hour long gunfight with a Maoist military company in the nearby forests on Saturday afternoon. 

Once the encounter was over, the body of a woman Maoist was found with weapons in a small vegetable patch, next to Gautam Patel's house. The bodies of five other uniformed and armed Maoists were also found in the forest area. 

Chhattisgarh police had claimed Saturday's encounter was a major success, since the STF had managed to repulse the incursion made by a Maoist military company in this part of the Chhattisgarh-Orissa border which had not seen any previous presence of the Maoists. 

But the death of two civilians has cast a shadow over the police's success. A magisterial enquiry has been ordered. Home minister Nankiram Kanwar visited the village and announced Rs 5 lakh compensation for the families of the two men.