Raipur: Ten security personnel and a civilian driver were on Wednesday killed when the vehicle in which they were travelling was blown up by Maoists in Dantewada district under south Bastar in Chhattisgarh.
This was the biggest Maoist attack on security personnel in Bastar in the last two years.
This was also the first major attack on the security forces by Naxals in Dantewada district after half a decade.
“Maoists triggered an improvised explosive device (IED) blast targeting a vehicle carrying district reserve guard (DRG) jawans in Aranpur area leading to death of ten security personnel and one civilian driver”, Bastar range IGP Sunderraj P. told this newspaper. The incident took place between Aranpur and Sameli under Aranpur police station limits at around 1 pm, Mr Sunderraj said.
According to Mr Sunderraj, the Maoist attack came when a team of DRG was returning to the district headquarters of Dantewada after conducting anti-Naxal operations in the Aranpur area. DRG is a tribal counter-insurgency force of the Chhattisgarh police.
The IED blast was so powerful that it created a seven-foot-deep crater on the road.
IGP (Naxal operation) O.P. Pal said that acting on specific inputs on a gathering of Naxals in Aranpur jungle, the DRG team was sent to the area for search operations. There was also an encounter between security personnel and the Naxals in the Aranpur jungle in the morning.
The Maoists attacked the security personnel when they were returning to Dantewada after conducting search operations.
A senior police officer disclosed to this newspaper that the DRG personnel had been conducting counter-insurgency operations in the Aranpur jungle for the last three years.
“They were returning in mini-vans to Dantewada in the afternoon after conducting anti-Naxal operations. Some locals at Sameli tried to stop the vehicles carrying jawans for a lift. The first vehicle sped away ignoring them.
But the second vehicle stopped and the jawans in the mini-van interacted with the locals before leaving the place. The blast took place barely 100 meters from the place when the vehicle stopped”, the police officer said, requesting not to be quoted.
“We suspect that the locals who stopped the vehicle were either Maoists or their sympathisers”, the police officer said.
According to Mr Pal, two suspects were arrested by the police in connection with the incident.
Sources said that one of them was a sentry in a police camp in the area.
“It is being reviewed if any lapse on the part of the police led to the incident”, Mr Pal said.
Chhattisgarh DGP Ashok Juneja has convened an emergency meeting of top police officers to take stock of the situation.
Chief minister Bhupesh Baghel expressed deep grief over the incident and said that the Naxals would not be spared under any circumstances.
Union home minister Amit Shah spoke to Mr Baghel on the phone on the incident and assured all help from the Centre to deal with Maoist problem. “We will work in a coordinated way and eliminate Naxalism”, he said.
The major attack on security personnel came after a lull of Maoist violence in Bastar in the last two years.
On April 3, 2021, 22 security personnel were killed in a Maoist attack at Takelguda in Bijapur district in Bastar.
Last week, Maoists attacked a vehicle carrying Congress MLA from Bijapur Vikram Mandavi. However, he escaped unhurt.
