Police in Chhattisgarh began investigations Sunday into a banner put up by suspected Maoists in a village warning that a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator would be killed in a month.
The banner was recovered in village Tokapal, 18 km from Jagdalpur town, headquarters of restive Bastar region spread out in about 40,000 sq km.
The banner claimed that Baiduram Kashyap, legislator from Chitrakote assembly seat in Bastar district, would be killed within a month if the area's poor families were not allotted rooms in a Panchayat building under construction at Tokapal, Inspector General of Police T.J. Longkumer told IANS over phone.
"We treat this threat very seriously and have advised the legislator to be alert and keep the police informed about his visits so that we can make security arrangements. The police are also probing if it is truly a Maoist banner or has someone committed mischief."
In September, Maoists attacked family members of BJP leader and Bastar Lok Sabha MP Baliram Kashap at a temple in the presence of hundreds of people and killed one of his sons.
That attack forced legislators of Bastar region to cancel their public engagements for a week.