Both incidents took place on Tuesday night. While the man identified as Ramji Dodi was murdered in Narayanpur district, another villager Madkam Raju was killed in Sukma district, they said. A native of Jhara village under Dhanora police station limits (Narayanpur), Dodi, a former deputy sarpanch, was strangled to death near his home, a local official said.

As per the preliminary information, a group of over a dozen Naxalites intercepted Dodi when he was going to his relative's place on foot and then abducted his two more family members, both men, from his house, he said.

The trio were taken inside a nearby forest, where Naxalites murdered Dodi and handed over the body to two others with a pamphlet suggesting he was acting as a police informer, he said.

In the Sukma incident, Raju was attacked by suspected Naxalites with sharp-edged weapons when he was sleeping in his house in Ondhepara village under Bheji police station limits, another official said.

A purported Maoist pamphlet was recovered from the spot in which Konta area committee of Maoists claimed that the victim was acting as a police informer, the official said. Security personnel were rushed to the place after being alerted about it, police said, adding that search operations were underway at both places.