Bankura, Jan. 7: The CPM district leadership has decided to ask party post holders to clear out from the junglemahal areas of Bankura after last night’s murder of a zonal committee member by Maoists.

Haren Baske, 38, a member of the Jhilimili CPM zonal committee and a former body guard of the late zonal committee secretary Suren Murmu, was shot dead near Jhilimili, about 220km from Calcutta.

Baske’s murder is the third of a CPM member in the area by Maoists in a month.

District CPM secretary Amiya Patra said the leadership will have to “remove party post holders from the junglemahal area of Bankura in the coming days”.

The police said about 30 people came to Baske’s house and dragged him away in front of his wife and two children about 11pm. They took him to a forest about a kilometre from his home and shot him dead.

“The way the crime was carried out is typical of Maoists,” said Amiya Patra, a district CPM secretary.

Rameshwar Murmu, branch committee secretary of Bhuladara, was shot dead on December 25. Three days later, Kalidas Hembram was hacked to death.