Naxals kill four people near Ranchi

They struck late at night. Twenty Naxals stormed into the house of the village headman in the Bundu block near Ranchi. They suspected the headman of being an informer. He wasn't home, so the Naxals grabbed his young relative, an eight-year-old girl, and shot her in the head and left leg. Then they struck her with a knife.

The Naxals then moved to a different part of the house and killed two college students and a woman, who were all renting a part of the house from the village headman.

Describing the incident, Amit, a villager, said, "They came at night. There was a sound of an explosion. We hid inside our homes. I don't know how many men there were. There was no electricity."

Police are shocked over the use of sophisticated weapons like AK-47 and INSAS rifles in the attacks. "The cartridges that have been recovered are of INSAS and AK-47," confirmed Anup T Mathew, SP, Rural, Ranchi.

Mathew believes the Naxals are a frustrated lot because the police are trying to pin them down. "That's why they have done this," he said.

Jharkhand is a state used to Naxal violence. But civilian killings like this have not been heard of in the past.

The Bundu village is on the busy Ranchi-Jamshedpur national highway and is not alien to Naxal attacks. On Monday, Naxals set five trucks on fire because their drivers dared to defy a 48-hour bandh call. The same night, a CRPF camp was attacked here, but the death of the eight-year-old child has shocked not just the village, but also the police administration.