New Delhi:Suspected Maoist rebels torched a forest rest house in
Dhamtari district of Chhattisgarh on Saturday. The attackers, who were around 300 in number, set the furniture and furnishings of the rest house on fire at
Khallari village in the wee hours of Saturday after threatening the guard. The
building was damaged and pamphlets stuck on the trees, saying that the attack
was in retaliation against the illegal and undeclared detention of certain people
by the police. "They (attackers) threatened and asked me to leave the place at
once. They brandished weapons and three of them took me to my house. They said
if I will tell anyone about the incident then they will kill me and my family,"
said Patiram, a guard of the forest rest house. Police suspect the Maoists to
be behind the incident. "These are a part of Maoist acts and we are suspecting
them behind this attack but nothing is certain till now. These activities are
nothing but to create panic among the people," said Vijay Katre, Deputy Superintendent
of Police of Dhamtari district. Maoists have stepped up violence across eastern
and central India. Maoist violence, estimated to have caused 600 to 700 deaths
annually and the displacement of 100,000 civilians, has spread to 182 of the country's
602 districts. The insurgents have attacked schools and police stations, and used
landmines and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) to disrupt infrastructure development
projects. They have also hijacked passenger trains including the prestigious super
fast Rajdhani Express, beheaded policemen and suspected informers and attacked
employees of mining companies. Thousands have been killed during the Maoist insurgency,
which began in the late 1960s, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the
Maoist threat one of the gravest homegrown threats to India's internal security.
