Bhubaneswar, June 9: Panic struck residents of Bandhugaon in Koraput after a 45-year-old man was killed by Maoists who purportedly suspected him of being a police informer.

The CPI(Maoist) Koraput division has claimed responsibility for the murder of the man, Meleka Taudu.

Meleka Bastu, Taudu’s son, said in his compliant lodged at Bandhugaon police station that a group of Maoists called his father and took him away. Later, his body was found with its throat slit.

Koraput police chief Awinash Kumar said Manchapadar villagers informed the Bandhugaon police this morning about last night’s killing.

“A police team visited the village. The villagers said that around 20 people had come to the village and killed Taudu. He was an innocent man who had no link with the police,” said the police chief.

Bandhugaon police officials said the Maoists had come in plain clothes. After killing Taudu, they left the village shouting slogans and leaving a letter at the spot. “They slit Taudu’s neck with a sharp weapon. He died on the spot,” said a source.

In the letter, the CPI(Maoist) Koraput division claimed responsibility for the murder, the police said. In the handwritten letter, the Maoists charged Taudu with informing the police of their activities and of extorting money from people by citing the Maoists.

Kumar said combing operations had been intensified in the area following the killing.

In the past month, the Maoists have killed three persons in Koraput, Malkangiri and Rayagada districts suspecting them to be police informers. The rebels had also abducted a policeman and shot him, besides injuring three SOG personnel.

On May 27, a day ahead of the scheduled visit of Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh to Malkangiri district, three SOG personnel were injured in a landmine blast triggered by CPI-Maoist cadres at Kanaguda in Malkangiri district.

On May 23, the Maoists killed Deba Bagaranga, 40, the husband of the sitting sarpanch of Hanumanthpur panchayat, at Hanumanthpur village in Chandrapur block of Rayagada district. Deba was also a former panchayat samiti member. Maoists alleged Deba was a police informer.

On May 19, the Maoists shot a contractor dead at Khairaput in Malkangiri district suspecting him to be a police informer.

On May 11, contractor Jami Rajendra Prasad, 40, from Narayanpatna block in Koraput district was killed on the same suspicion.

On May 8, CPI-Maoist cadres abducted Krupa Ram Majhi, an assistant sub-inspector, and shot him dead in Nuapada district. Majhi was escorting a water tanker to a CRPF camp at Goudha near Sunabeda sanctuary when the incident took place.