The 48-hour Jharkhand-Bihar bandh, called by CPI (Maoists) against against the killing of one of a woman cadre in an encounter, kept the Maoist-affected districts in Jharkhand at a standstill on Monday. Most of the shops and market places remained closed in the districts like Gumla, lohardaga, Simdega and lohardga while the National and State Highways remained deserted throughout the day. The rebels also torched several vehicles in Hazaribagh.
"Rebels torched one bus and two trucks on NH100 at Pasaria More, which comes under the Tatijhaaria police station late in the night on Sunday at around 12 pm," said Hazaribagh SP Akhilesh Jha. "We had cordoned off all the vehicles near and requested them to wait till morning but somehow these three vehicles managed to dodge us and escaped from there," he added.
According to the sources, a group of around 50 rebels appeared from forests, stopped the bus, asked the passengers to get down and torched it. The bus belonging to Pammi Travels was going towards Hazaribagh from Vishnugarh. Two trucks, also coming towards Hazaribagh were set on fire by the (Maoists).
In Palamu, a mobile tower was also set ablazeat Raghunidih under Naudiha police station. The incident took place about 66 km away from district headquarters on late Sunday night.
A group of 15 rebels raided the house of the caretaker of the mobile tower, took away the keys and and put it on fire.