After a long lull, the Maoists have resumed their murderous attacks on CPI(ML) Liberation activists. Recently, on 22 December, 2009, they carried out a murderous assault on Party member Com. Dayanand Yadav of Naudiha village in Atari of Gaya district, after leveling some cooked-up charges against him. Somehow, he managed to save his life but his nephew Manoj Yadav (26 years) and a villager Ramchandra Chaudhari (35 yrs) received fatal gun-shots and lost their life in the attack. The Maoists have owned up the assault through a press statement and have alleged that Com. Dayanand killed one of their Party activists and that Manoj Yadav was one of his gang members. They have, however, accepted that the other deceased Ramchandra Chaudhari was an innocent villager and have merely tendered an apology to the people for his killing.

The Khijarsarai-Atari joint committee of the CPI(ML) had challenged them (through leaflets and public gatherings) to prove their allegation. Instead the Maoists retaliated and fatally attacked Com. Arjun Patel Yadav. 42 year old Com. Arjun Patel Yadav had joined the IPF and Party in his student days in 1987. During that phase about half a dozen people from his village became IPF activists. He was one of young activists who stood firm in their efforts to reorganize and revitalise the Party in the phase of ideological challenge and liquidationism in 1991-92 in this region. 30-40 Maoists armed with automatic fire-arms and SLRs reached his house on 3^rd January 2010, kidnapped him and took him to a nearby place and pumped several bullets in his head, alleging that he was a police informer.

Outraged people under Party’s banner took out protest marches in Gaya city, Dobhi, Belagunj, Khijarsarai and Tikari and sternly condemned the attacks. In Barachatti people assembled in huge numbers for the protest march.

Such arbitrary killings of CPI(ML) activists by the CPI(Maoist) are not a new phenomenon. The gruesome killings of comrades sleeping in the party office at Paliganj are still fresh in our memory. At a juncture when the state’s offensive on the people in the name of countering “Maoism” is being challenged by democratic and revolutionary forces including the CPI(ML) all over the country, the Maoists have shown their irresponsibility and sectarianism by targeting young revolutionary activists of the CPI(ML). In Bihar, such tactics have led to their effective isolation from the people – and their frustration and desperation at this isolation is reflected in their murderous attacks on CPI(ML) activists.