May 26: The Kalashnikov-toting Maoists peered into every vehicle asking “Where is Mahendra Karma?” and spraying bullets at the occupants as they failed to respond.

Suddenly, an elderly man stepped out of the eighth vehicle in the Congress convoy and said in a calm voice: “I am Mahendra Karma.”

The 62-year-old founder of anti-Maoist militia Salwa Judum — the rebels’ prime target during Saturday’s ambush in Chhattisgarh — heroically chose certain death yesterday by identifying himself to the guerrillas, sacrificing his life to save those of fellow Congress leaders and workers, survivors said.

“The Maoist cadres did not know Karma by face. They stopped shooting after he identified himself. Had he not surrendered, the rebels would have continued firing and scores more would have died,” said an intelligence official who had spoken to many eyewitnesses.

Chhattisgarh Congress secretary Vivek Bajpai, who was in the ambushed convoy, described the horror as the rebels searched for Karma among the 100-odd passengers, firing from their AK-47s.

“My driver Raju panicked. Suddenly, Karmaji stepped out of his vehicle and announced ‘I am Karma’ with the utmost calm,” Bajpai said.

“The Maoists pounced on him, dragged him to a nearby spot and riddled him with bullets. After he slumped to the ground, they hit him with their rifle butts. Some stabbed him with their knives.”

Police said more than 50 bullets were found in Karma’s body, reflecting the guerrillas’ hatred for the man who had been a thorn in their flesh for over two decades.

The Maoists killed 27 people, including state Congress chief Nand Kumar Patel and his son Dinesh, and critically injured former Union minister Vidya Charan Shukla and MLA Kawas Lakhma. Bajpai said he was among many whom the rebels summoned to identify Karma’s body after killing him. ‘“Is he the one who called himself Mahendra Karma?’ they asked me. I was feeling dizzy but I nodded,” Bajpai said.

BJP chief minister Raman Singh today praised Karma as a brave man and a hero. “He dedicated his life to the fight against the Maoists and never bowed down before the rebels,” Singh said.

Bajpai said the state Congress chief was another Maoist target. “A Maoist asked me about Nand Kumar Patel and his son Dinesh. When I feigned ignorance, he slapped and punched me,” he said.

“Suddenly, someone shouted that Patel had been found. He was sitting with MLA Lakhma and his personal security guard. He was briskly taken away.”

Initial reports last evening had said Patel and Dinesh were missing and had probably been kidnapped by the rebels but their bodies were found later.

Patel’s younger son Umesh, who got married on May 20, recalled that before leaving in the motorcade for the Parivartan Yatra rally yesterday morning, Nand Kumar had hugged him and wished him marital happiness.

“It was unusual. Normally, my father did not display this kind of physical affection. I liked it and it had a lingering, pleasant impact on me,” Umesh said.

Bajpai said he found it odd that while the male Maoists acted ruthlessly, the women cadres appeared sympathetic to the victims. “Many with bullet wounds were crying in pain. Some women Maoists attended to them, offering water.”

Karma, a former state leader of the Opposition, had been on the Maoist hit list since 1991 when he launched the Jan Jagran Abhiyan, an awareness campaign against the rebels. In 2006, he founded the Salwa Judum, made up of tribal youths armed and trained by the state government to fight the rebels.

Rights bodies sympathetic to the Maoists accused the vigilantes of atrocities on villagers and the Supreme Court in 2011 declared the organisation unconstitutional.

Karma had been accorded Z-plus security. His guards put up a brave resistance yesterday but were overpowered after they ran out of ammunition, officials said.

Combing operations along the Odisha-Chhattisgarh border were intensified today and police and paramilitary forces in districts such as Malkangiri and Koraput were put on high alert in the wake of the attack. Sources said the ambush in Sukma, around 100km from Malkangiri, has come as a wake-up call for Odisha police.