Nand Kumar Patel
Nand Kumar Patel was an Indian National Congress politician from the province of Chhattisgarh. He was elected to the Kharsia Assembly Constituency five times in a row.
He was a cabinet minister in the state governments of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. He was kidnapped and killed by Naxalites during the 2013 Naxal attack in Darbha valley.
On 25 May 2013, news broke that several Congress leaders were killed in a Naxalite attack on a Congress convoy. At first, Naxalites claimed to have kidnapped Nand Kumar Patel and his son Dinesh keeping up the hopes of their coming back alive. However, their bullet-ridden bodies were found in the Jiram valley in the Bastar district the next day.
On 27 May, the Naxalites claimed responsibility for the attack by issuing a statement which called it a punishment for atrocities committed by the Salwa Judum, the counter-Naxalite paramilitary forces in the Bastar area, and claimed the attack was targeted at its leader, Mahendra Karma.
The newly elected Chhattisgarh government has set up an SIT under Vivekanand Sinha to probe into the incident on January 2, 2019.
