GAYA, India, 24 January 2005 — Former member of Parliament and Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) candidate for the Imamgunj assembly seat in Gaya, Rajesh Kumar, and four others were killed in a Maoist attack near Gaya early yesterday.
Kumar, who was earlier with Lalu Prasad’s Rashtriya Janata Dal, was also the national secretary-general of LJP and was campaigning in his constituency when his vehicle was stopped near Madar village in Gaya district. Heavily armed Maoists first pumped several bullets into Kumar and a close aide, Ghulam Sarwar Mirani, when two body guards and Kumar’s driver returned fire.
The three were also killed in the shootout. The terrorists set fire to Kumar’s vehicle before fleeing.
Two companies of the Central Reserve Police Force were deployed in the area to assist local police in combing operations against Maoists, known as Naxalites.
LJP President and federal minister Ram Vilas Paswan, party MP Suraj Bhan Singh and several other senior party leaders who reached here after hearing the news described the state’s law and order situation as the “worst in the country.”
They demanded an inquiry into the killing of Kumar and others and said that the state government has failed to control the law and order situation.
Meanwhile, in another case of poll-related violence, 14 extremists were killed yesterday in clashes between armed activists of two banned underground Maoist groups at Khaida village in Latehar district of neighboring Jharkhand state, police said.
Activists of the CPI (Maoist) and Sangharsh Janmukti Morcha traded gunfire in the early hours resulting in the killing of 14 people from both groups, Director General of Police M .V. Rao said.
In a separate incident, armed Maoists torched a campaign vehicle of the Congress nominee for Goh assembly constituency, Kaukan Kadri, near Jaitiya village in Aurangabad district yesterday afternoon, police said.
The CPI (Maoist) has called on the electorate to boycott next month’s assembly elections in Bihar and Jharkhand.
Violence is common during elections in Bihar. Elections in the state will be held in three phases starting Feb. 3.
Bad weather yesterday saw Lalu, Paswan and Janata Dal-United leader Nitish Kumar and Bharatiya Janata Party leaders cancel traveling by air for the poll campaign.
“The bad weather had pilots refusing to fly the politicians for election campaigns,” said an official at the airport here.
With barely nine days in hand to campaign for the first phase of elections in 64 assembly seats, the bad weather has cost the politicians precious time.
The state Congress was the least affected as party chief Sonia Gandhi’s visit here for campaigning is yet to be finalized.
