Maoists suspected behind Chhattisgarh scribe's murder

Raipur: Maoists are suspected to have killed a journalist of a Hindi newspaper in Chhattisgarh's Bastar region, police said Wednesday.

"Nemichand Jain was stabbed to death at Leda village of Sukma district late Tuesday while he was returning from a local weekly market to his village Tongapal," Lakhan Patel, a senior police official in Sukma, told a news agency over phone.

He added that Maoists were suspected behind the brutal killing as a few pamphlets were found around the body that claimed the scribe was spying for police and was also provoking local youths against Maoists.

"I can't confirm that Maoists committed the murder as the role of some local criminals can't be ruled out. But it looks like the cold-blooded murder was done by Maoists," an official at the police headquarters here said.

The journalists in Chhattisgarh, particularly those working in Maoist-infested Bastar, have strongly condemned the killing and demanded that the kin of the killed journalist be compensated.