KORAPUT: Maoists on Wednesday night murdered a postmaster of Kamalapadar village in Malkangiri district on the suspicion that he was a police informer.The deceased has been identified as Narayan Palasi. Kamalapadar village is within the Paplur panchayat, that falls under the Kalimela police limits in the district.According to sources, a group of 10 to 15 armed Maoists dragged Palasi out from his house at around 10 pm on Wednesday.They reportedly took him to the village Anganwadi centre and physically assaulted him before shooting him from a close range. They also slit his throat with a sharp-edged weapon, said a source at Kalimela.The Maoists left a poster at the spot, announcing that the deceased had been working as a police informer and has been punished for that."Palasi was in contact with surrendered Maoist Sukdev and used to pass information on the Naxals to police," read the poster."Anyone who does wrong (works as police informer) will be punished. Other villagers need not be frightened over the development," it further read.A few months ago, Maoists had reportedly physically assaulted Palasi for working as a police informer. They had warned him of dire consequences if he did not comply with the extremists' demands. Police have dismissed the Maoists' allegations as baseless and have denied that Palasi was an informer."We have never ever received any information from Palasi for anti-Maoist operations. We have our own intelligence network. Maoists seem to have murdered the postmaster for some other reason. We will be investigate into it," said Malkangiri superintendent of police, Jagmohan Meena. "After killing someone, Maoists label him as a police informer to gain sympathy," said Meena.Police suspect the crime to be the handiwork of the local operating squad of the Kalimela Dalam and said efforts are on to identify the attackers.

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