A 55 year old tribal Jagir Bhagat was shot dead on Sunday night by rebels of banned CPI (Maoist) at naxal affected Mungo locality under Serengdag police station area of Lohardaga district on the mere suspicion that Bhagat is a police informer since his son Rajesh Bhagat is driver of DIG of Palamu range Rajkumar Lakra.

Rebels who shot him three bullets also left leaflets at the crime scene besides a cane bomb. Taking responsibility of murder; rebels claimed that victim was murdered because he was a police informer.

Sources in the police said that murder was executed by regional commander of CPI (Maoist) Ravindra Ganjhu and his armed squad. Ganjhu carrying Rs 15 lakh cash reward on his head is wanted in over a dozen of naxal cases including killing of three home guard jawans and an ASI ranked official of Latehar police on November 22, last year.

Police reached quite late at the spot despite victim’s son informed the police about the murder and said that life of his mother is under threat since she was also assaulted by rebels.

Victim used to work for some local contractors on local developmental works on paltry payment. Besides, he used to run a shop at Mungo chowk. Police said that on Sunday night the victim along with his wife Lalmani Bakhla was on the way to their shop as they usually sleep at their shop.    

On the way he was kidnapped by six armed rebels who came here on three bikes. They tied and dragged Jagir and his wife to their shop. They released Lalmani asking her to run away and shot three bullets at Jagir who died on the spot. They accused Jagir of being an informer to police and he was on the payroll of police.

Nevertheless, local police were aware that Jagir having no connection with police was on the hit list of rebels since 2018 when he received a bullet on his arm. But local police seem to have ignored his security.