Bhubaneswar, Oct. 13: Armed Maoists shot dead the headman of a village in Malkangiri district in the wee hours today.

Kartik Roy, 45, was dragged out of home by an army of 30-odd Naxalites in MV-66 village, around 560 km from here, at 2 am. “The Maoists first asked him to come out of the house. When he refused, they tied his son Kishore and a guest and forcibly dragged him away to the forest,” said Malkangiri superintendent of police Yatindra Koyal. The village falls under Kalimela police station.

Family members said Roy’s wife Shyamali followed the rebels into the jungle but had to come back following threats from her husband’s captors.

The villagers heard a gunshot around 2.30 am. Roy’s body was found on the Kalimela-Malkangiri road this morning along with an empty cartridge.

A note written in Oriya was pinned to the chest of the headman, which said “anyone going against us will face a similar consequence” and “police informers will be punished”. Police officials said the rebels might have suspected Roy to be a police informer.

Koyal and other officials rushed to the village, around 40 km from the district headquarters, on hearing the news.

Naveen Patnaik, now in Delhi, expressed grief over the killing and directed that ex gratia payment of Rs 1 lakh be paid to the victim’s family from the chief minister’s relief fund.

Roy was allegedly involved in organising villagers against the Maoists for the past two years. He reportedly received threats from the rebels for speaking out against their activities.

The Naxalite attack came less than a week after Rourkela police arrested three Maoists, including a zonal commander of the CPI(Maoist) for Orissa, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, on October 7.

The trio was allegedly involved in several acts of violence in Jharkhand. Budhini Munda alias Binda, commander of the CPI(Maoist), was the wife of veteran Maoist leader Prashant Bose. The woman is learnt to have told police during interrogation that she was part of a squad involved in the 2004 Baliba massacre in Jharkhand.

On June 3 this year, the Maoists killed Durga Charan Mishra, inspector in-charge (IIC) of Motu police station in Malkangiri, in broad daylight.

Mishra, accompanied by a sub-inspector, were talking to local residents over the presence of Maoists in their area when four persons arrived at the spot and opened fire.

In 2003, Naxalites had attacked the Malkangiri police station and killed five policemen and as many Central Reserve Police Force jawans.