In what is being seen as a backlash of the CPI (Maoist)-linked Delhi University professor GN Saibaba’s arrest, seven police personnel were killed and two others injured, when Maoists ambushed a vehicle carrying security personnel and blew it up in a landmine blast in Gadchiroli district in eastern Maharashtra on Sunday morning.
less than 24 hours after Saibaba was arrested in the national Capital by a Maharashtra Police team on Friday and remanded in magisterial custody for 14 days by a Nagpur court, Maoists retaliated by blowing up a van carrying personnel of the State Anti-Naxal Squad (ANS) C-60 in a forest area between Pavimuranda and Murmuri villages of Chamorshi taluka of Gadchiroli district.
While seven C-60 personnel were killed on the spot, two severely wounded security personnel were air-lifted to Nagpur, where they have been admitted to the Orange City Hospital. “The condition of the two police personnel is critical,” a senior State police official said.
Those killed have been identified as Sunil Madhavi, Rohan Dambande, Duryodan Nagtode, Tirupati Allam, Deepak Vidave, Nayak Sipayee, all constables, and lakshman Munde, the driver of the van. The severely injured policemen were identified as Pankaj Sidham and Hemant Bansode.
The State police rushed additional reinforcements of security personnel to the forest area where the landmine blast took place. The ANS personnel are combing the forests in Chamorshi taluka of Gadchiroli district for the Maoists operating in the area.
Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil said that the latest attack on the police personnel in Gadchiroli was a desperate attempt to register their presence by the Maoists outfits operating in Maoist-infested district of the State, in the face of a successful anti-naxal operation carried out by the Maharashtra Government during the last two years.
“In the last two years, we have succeeded in combating Naxals operating in the State effectively. We have killed 37 Naxalites in various encounters and arrested 55 Maoists, while 48 Maoists have surrendered. Our police personnel are continuing to fight the Maoists in Gadchiroli district. Today seven of our personnel were killed, while two others sustained wounds,” Patil said.
leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra legislative Council Vinod Tawde of the BJP demanded a high-level inquiry into the security lapses. Addressing the media here, Tawde said Sunday’s incident exposed the State Home Ministry’s failure to curb the attacks by Maoists operating at the border districts of eastern Maharashtra and said it was high time that the State Government evolved a fool-proof strategy to combat the menace.
“After the arrest of Saibaba who is considered a “think-tank” of Maoist groups operating in the state, the State government should have anticipated this kind of an attack on our security personnel. But, Sunday’s attack clearly reflects the intelligence failure,” the BJP leader said.
Sunday’s was the second major naxal attack after the Maoists blew up a bus carrying poll officials and security personnel ikaripara block of Jharkhand’s Dumka district on April 24, killing five police personnel and three polling officials. They had placed an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) under a bridge under which the bus that the attackers targeted passed through.
Saibaba, whom the Gadchiroli police had questioned on at least four occasions in recent months prior to his arrest, has been charged under various sections of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. From a hard disc, pen drives and other reading material seized from Saibaba’s residence in September last year, the Gadchiroli police are understood to have established his links with Maoist outfits operating in the states of Maharashtra and Chhatisgarh.