A journalist was killed in a landmine blast in a Maoist hotbed in Odisha’s Kalahandi on Saturday while reporting on a call by the rebels to boycott panchayat elections.

Rohit Kumar Biswal, 41, who worked for a vernacular daily, is suspected to have accidentally stepped onto a landmine planted by Maoists while taking pictures of posters put up near the Karlakhunta bridge in the Madanpur Rampur police station area appealing to people to stay away from the polls.

Biswal, a block-level reporter and resident of Kalahandi, had travelled to the area after coming to know about the boycott call.

Polling for the five-phase elections will begin on February 16.

An officer of Madanpur Rampur police station told The Telegraph: “The Maoists had put up the posters on Friday night. Coming to know of the boycott call, Biswal arrived at the spot on Saturday morning and went near the bridge to take pictures of the posters. He seems to have accidentally stepped onto the landline and it exploded. His body landed some distance away from the impact of the blast. The incident took place around 11am.”

Biswal’s body was retrieved in the evening while the police were sanitising the area with the help of a bomb-disposal squad.

The superintendent of police of Kalahandi, Dr Saravana Vivek M, told local reporters: “We have intensified our operation against the Maoists. The site has been corded off and a joint team of the CRPF and Odisha police have begun a probe.”

None could recall an earlier instance of a journalist dying in Odisha from a Maoist landmine blast.