Grief pervades Potteru as Subas family starves

MALKANGIRI: An eerie silence prevailed in the Koya-dominated village of Potteru, where Suba Bandami’s family lives. Maoists on Friday gunned down Suba, a former militia turned police informer. He was abducted along with five other suspected police informers by the rebels from Potteru village of Kalimela block under Motu police limits on Tuesday night. Suba had reportedly made up his mind to surrender before the police when he was kidnapped. While the Maoists freed four persons on Thursday, they had detained Suba and Suresh Bandami. Now with Suba killed, little is known on the whereabouts of Suresh.Having lost the only earning member of the family, Bandami Lachhi, the inconsolable wife of Suba said, “the rebels kidnapped my husband and now they claim to have killed him. With the only bread-winner of the family gone, there is nothing in my house to feed my four kids as everything including paddy, rice and utensils have been looted by the rebels”. The kidnap and subsequent killing of Suba is suspected to be the Maoists’ way of threatening the renegades. Suba, it is learnt, was not pulling on well with the rebels and had visited Malkangiri a couple of days back to surrender before police. A poster left at a place, some 15 km from Potteru village on Saturday morning confirmed that the rebels shot Suba dead on Friday night. Suba was in our party but later he became a police informer and also played a key role in the surrender of committee members because of which we killed him, the poster read. Anybody involving in such activities would be killed, the Maoists warned. SP Anirudha Singh said one of the villagers who was an eyewitness to the tragic incident informed the police about killing of the Koya man. However, the body has not yet been recovered.