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Naxalites kill TDP MLA

In yet another pre-election offensive, Naxalites of the banned People's War Group shot dead P Purshotham Rao, the sitting MLA and ruling Telugu Desam Party candidate from the Sirpur assembly constituency, and three of his gunmen at Sirpur Kagaznagar town in Adilabad district of Andhra Pradesh, this morning.

Additional District Police Superintendent Sudhakara Rao told UNI that four militants went to the TDP office soon after the MLA arrived. Posing as partymen, they entered the office and opened fire at the MLA and his three gunmen. All of them collapsed in a pool of blood. The killers fled from the scene after taking away the three carbines of the gunmen.

Rao was elected to the state assembly as an Independent from Sirpur in 1994. He had recently joined the TDP. The police said the motive behind the killing was not clear as Rao was not on the PWG hit-list.

Polling in the Sirpur assembly segment, which is slated for September 18, has been countermanded in view of the killing.

This is the fourth major pre-election attack by the PWG which has called for the boycott of the election. On September 4, a day before the first phase of polling in the state, Marxist Leninist terrorists gunned down a senior Indian Police Service officer, Umesh Chandra, along with his gunman and driver in Hyderabad.

In another incident, a sub-inspector of police was shot dead at Addatheegala in the East Godavari district on the eve of the second phase of polling.

On Monday last, the extremists mounted a military-style raid on the police station at Papannapet in Medak district, killing four constables and a head constable, before blasting the building and decamping with 16 weapons.

Today's attack, coming just two days before the polling, is obviously aimed at striking fear among the electorate and demoralising politicians and the policemen in the Naxal-infested Telangana region. Twelve of the 14 state Lok Sabha constituencies and their assembly segments, which go to the polls in the third and final round on Saturday, are in the region.

UNI

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