Sundergarh (ANI), Feb.7 (ANI): In yet another instance of Maoists’ atrocities against the poor people, a villager in Orissa’s Sundergarh district was gunned down by Maoists after suspecting him to be a police informer.

Sukru Oram was a poor labourer. He was abducted and killed by the rebels.

The incident agitated all villagers here and to express their outrage they blocked the highway with logs.

Oram’s killing was the third in the past ten days in the region.

The Maoist rebellion began four decades ago championing the cause of poor peasants in the east, but has now spread to large areas of the country, with the rebels targeting police and government property in hit-and-run attacks.

The rebels have ignored repeated calls to renounce violence and negotiate and have stepped up their attacks in recent months, prompting the government to go after them in a concerted strike.

Thousands have been killed in the Maoist insurgency, which began in the late 1960s and which Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had described as one of the gravest domestic threat to India’s internal security. (ANI)