Bhagalpur, June 5: Personnel of the CRPF’s 131st battalion today found bodies of the three men, abducted on June 2, from a ditch on the outskirts of Rampur hamlet, around 10km from the sub-divisional headquarters.

Villagers identified the deceased as Pramod Paswan, a contractor and a resident of Khandbehari hamlet, Sanjay Paswan of Mohanpur (both falling under Haveli Kharagpur police station) and Sourav Das of Gajipur Khanka under Asarganj police station of the district.

On June 3 evening, a Maoist area commander, preferring anonymity, had said: “We punished the trio because they were Bhagalpur range inspector-general of police A.K. Ambedkar’s men and were trying to cause damage to our organisation. Ambedkar had asked Pramod to motivate our people to surrender.” The CRPF personnel and the police conducted a search operation yesterday. “The throats of the three persones were slit, suggesting it to be the handiwork of Birbal’s (area commander of Haveli Kharagpur-Jamui range) gang,” said a CRPF officer.