On the 10th anniversary of the 2013 Jheeram Ghati attack, where 29 people including the Congress’s senior leadership in Chhattisgarh were killed, Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel alleged the BJP had saved the masterminds of the Maoist attack.
On Thursday, Baghel visited a memorial to the victims of the attack, which was inaugurated last year in Bastar district’s Jagdalpur city. Excise Minister Kawasi Lakhma, who survived the attack, was also present with the chief minister.
आज जगदलपुर में झीरम मेमोरियल पहुंचकर झीरम घाटी के शहीदों को श्रद्धांजलि अर्पित कर शहीदों के परिजनों से मुलाकात की।
आज झीरम घाटी की घटना को घटित हुए दस वर्ष हो गये हैं, जब भी 25 मई आता है हम सब का दिल भर जाता है।#झीरम_श्रद्धांजलि_दिवस pic.twitter.com/FhsDdbZSQl
— Bhupesh Baghel (@bhupeshbaghel) May 25, 2023
Before visiting the memorial, Baghel said the attack had sent shock waves across India as never before were so many political leaders killed in a single attack. “The attack was being probed by the NIA, which in its FIR initially mentioned the names of Ramanna and Ganapathi for conspiracy. Till August 2014, their names were there in the FIR. There was an order to even seize their properties, but not much was done in this regard,” he said.
“On September 2014 a preliminary report was filed in an NIA court and to our shock, the names of the two were removed from it. The final report submitted later too did not include their names,” he told reporters.
“Why is the Modi government saving this duo? What was the BJP’s motive behind it? I want answers from the BJP as to why the names of Ramanna and Ganapathi were taken off from the FIR. Soon after Modi became prime minister, the probe was closed with the conclusion that the Dandakaranya committee was behind the attack. Was the NIA under pressure to take out the two names? The day our government comes to power at the Centre, we will clear everything,” the Congress leader said.
Muppala Lakshman Rao (72), better known as Ganapathi, who retired in 2018, had led the CPI (Maoist) since 2004, when the outfit was formed by merging the People’s War Group, Maoist Communist Centre of India and the CPI (Marxist-Leninist).
Ravula Srinivas alias Ramanna, a former central committee member and secretary of the Dandakaranya special zonal committee of the CPI (Maoists), is said to have died in 2019.
