Patna, Dec.23 (ANI): Maoist rebels killed two villagers and torched machines of a road construction company in two separate incidents on Tuesday late evening in Bihar state, police said on Wednesday.

In the first incident in Atari region, armed Maoists, looking for a deserter, fired indiscriminately at a house that they suspected to be his hideout.

Two villagers were killed in the firing, but they had nothing to do with the Maoists.

“As soon as we received the information, we reached the spot with the police force. We searched for the rebels but they had fled,” said Nand Kishore, Assistant Sub Inspector.

In another incident, Maoist rebels torched machines of a construction company at Gurua, including two JCB machines, a tractor and a motorcycle, whose owner had reportedly refused ransom.

A Maoist outfit named Shastra People’s Morcha (SPM - Armed People’s Front) claimed responsibility, said a police official.

“This is the first violent activity carried by SPM (Shastra People’s Morcha) in Gurua. Outfits like MCC (Maoist Communist Centre) have carried out violent activities here earlier but it is for the first time that we have recorded a militant activity by SPM,” said Rup Narayan Ram, Police Officer in-charge, Gurua.

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

India imposed a ban on the prominent Maoist group, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) in June by contending they were propagating violence. (ANI)