Upcoming Friday, November 18, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) has annouced a bandh, a strike flanked by militant actions, to take place in two districts of Odisha, Koraput and Malkangiri. The call of the CPI (Maoist) comes after two reporters have been shot dead by "Security Forces" in service of the reactionary Indian State.
After murdering the two reporters the police had claimed that it would successfully had attacked a Maoist camp, engaged in a firefight with upto 15 combattants, killed two of them and captured literature, weaponry and uniforms - as well as a cannabis. Since then however it became evident, that the claims of the police have nothing much in common with reality and merely serve two cover up two unlawfull killings they have committed.
According to reactionary media, not only does the CPI (Maoist) express, that the two reporters were no militants of theirs, but so does the family and friends of them. According to the latter, the two were pressed into transporting cannabis by local gangs because they were not able to find employment as reporters. The police must have considered this a windfall, to also slander the CPI (Maoist) with trafficing drugs after the unlawfull killings. This fake-encounter, a staged firefight to explain two dead bodies and bolster the stats for combating "Maoists", however was fiercly denounced by the family and friends of the two murdered, who staged the successfull blockage of a motor highway on Sunday, leading to the arrest of 20 participants, including a local affiliate of the congress.
In support of the struggle of the families, to denounce the reactions practice of fake-encounter and to demand justice, CPI (Maoist) has issued a call for upcoming Friday to participate in the bandh.
