Congress seeks judicial probe in Dantewada killing

Raipur, Aug 18 (IANS) Chhattisgarh’s opposition Congress Thursday sought a judicial inquiry into killing of a village head allegedly by para-military troopers in a staged shootout earlier this month.

‘The Chhattisgarh government should issue order for a judicial probe into killing of a village head, Madkami Massa, who was shot dead by police branding him as a Maoist,’ state unit Congress chief Nandkumar Patel said, in a press statement released here.

The killing of Chikpal village head, Massa, who was allegedly picked up from his village by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in early August and found dead, had generated widespread protest in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada, India’s worst insurgency-hit district, with local residents and local legislator Kawasi Lakhma staging protest for several days.

The CRPF and local police, that had claimed to kill the village head in an gunfight, had buried the body in a hurry, saying that there was none to claim it. But after days of public protest, the authorities exhumed the body and handed it over to the family after post-mortem.