Bhubaneswar: Maoists on Saturday night abducted a man at Salepali village in Bargarh district, about 350km from here, and killed him allegedly on the suspicion of being a police informer.

The deceased, identified as Bijay Sahu, 30, ran a betel shop in the village that falls in Pailmal police limits.

Sources said a group of armed rebels barged into Sahu's house around 8.30pm on Saturday and kidnapped him. The Maoists later took him to the nearby forest and hacked him to death. The body, which was discovered first by the villagers, had severe injury marks all over.

The Maoists left behind posters saying Sahu had been punished for conveying information about them to the police. The posters also warned local residents that they would meet the same end if they co-operated with the police.

Padampur sub-divisional police officer Laxmi Narayan Panda confirmed the murder but did not give further details because the matter was under investigation.

Sources said by killing Sahu, the rebels had avenged the death of two of their colleagues in a police encounter at Salepali village in July last year. They suspected that Sahu had informed the police about the presence of Maoists in the area resulting in a massive operation against them by the police.

In January 2012, the police had notched up a major success by arresting top Maoist leader, Girish, in Bargarh district. Girish, from whom the police had recovered a firearm and 12 live cartridges along with a compass and sketch maps of the Bargarh district armoury, was heading a division of the CPI (Maoist) comprising the six western Odisha districts of Sambalpur, Deogarh, Sundargarh, Jharsuguda, Bargarh and Balangir.

A year before that, the police had arrested four Maoists in the same district and seized arms, ammunition and communist literature from them . Two tiffin bombs, two detonators and some gelatin sticks were recovered from the vehicle in which the arrested rebels were traveling.