Raipur, Dec 6 (IANS) Members of the outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist), which is celebrating the anniversary of its military wing, raided a rest house in an interior village of Chhattisgarh and set it on fire, police said Sunday.
The rest house belonged to the forest department and is located at Khallari village under Sihawa forested circle in Dhamtari district, some 120 km from state capital Raipur.

“Insurgents stormed the rest house and took the security guard hostage for a brief period. They then set the rest house on fire. A major portion of the building has been gutted,” District Superintendent of Police Sheikh Arif Hussein told reporters.

Officials here at police headquarters said extra troopers were sent in the area to launch an operation to apprehend the attackers who were more than 100 in number.

The state government had sounded a high alert after police recovered a huge number of leaflets late last month from southern restive Bastar region, in which the rebels had asked people to observe the ninth anniversary of the People’s Liberation of Guerilla Army (PLGA) Dec 2-8.

In the leaflets written in Gondi language, the Maoist guerrillas appealed the people to become members of the CPI-Maoist and get recruited as PLGA fighters.