BJP trying to shield Maoist leaders Ganapati, Ramanna: Bhupesh

| | JAGDALPUR
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BJP trying to shield Maoist leaders Ganapati, Ramanna: Bhupesh

Friday, 26 May 2023 | Staff Reporter | JAGDALPUR

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel on Thursday accused the Modi government and state BJP leaders of trying to shield Ganapati and Ramanna, who he said conspired to kill his party's leadership at the Jheeram Valley.

Ganapati and Ramanna are the nom de guerre of two of the most wanted leaders of the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) who have been leading a Maoist insurgency in central India for decades.

Baghel told reporters that the BJP was trying to hamper the state government’s efforts to unearth the conspiracy behind the Jheeram attack and questioned why the names of Ganapati and Ramanna were removed from the report of the NIA.

He said the day a Congress government is formed at the Centre, "we will clear the hindrance in the probe into the conspiracy angle of the incident. We will make clear 'Doodh Ka Doodh and Pani ka Pani',” he said.

He said this while paying homage at the memorial built in the memory of those killed in a brutal Naxalite attack in Jheeram valley in Bastar district in 2013.

On May 25 that year, Maoists attacked a convoy of Congress leaders ahead of Assembly elections, killing 32 people, including then state Congress chief Nand Kumar Patel, former leader of opposition Mahendra Karma and former Union minister Vidya Charan Shukla.

The memorial, named ‘Jheeram Ghati Shaheed Smarak’, has been built in Lalbagh area of Jagdalpur, the headquarters of Bastar district, where statues of politicians and security personnel killed in the attack have been installed.

“In the last 10 years, we tried our best to bring the facts to light. As you all know, it was a political and criminal conspiracy. But they (BJP) kept on trying to stall our efforts and moved the judiciary to get a stay,” the chief minister said.

“The National Investigation Agency’s probe into the incident was not satisfactory. When we started a fresh police investigation and demanded the case back from the NIA, the BJP-led government at the Centre denied it. The NIA moved the high court against the fresh police probe,” he said.

He claimed that BJP leaders in Chhattisgarh have also been trying to pose hindrances in the proceedings of the two-member judicial commission probing the attack.

Leader of Opposition Dharamlal Kaushik recently moved the high court against the judicial panel probe, the chief minister said.

Baghel said one needed to know who were behind this mass killings and why all these hindrances were being created.

During his visit, the Chief Minister interacted with the families of some of those who were killed.

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