latehar police are unearthing deadly devices of the CPI Maoists in a spree days before the Panki bypoll slated for May 16. On Saturday May 14 a joint team of latehar police and CRPF unearthed 13 booby traps in the form of IEDs on the border of Panki in Palamu and Herhunj in latehar.
Sources said for the Panki bypoll it is the latehar police that are making the task much easier for the Palamu police which are to see through the by poll in its district. latehar district police are giving material losses after losses to the Maoists. A week ago latehar police had seized deadly ammonium nitrate and explosive oil.
On May 14 it retrieved 13 IEDs. Out of 13 five are pressure cookers filled with deadly powder and fitted with electric wire. These pressure cookers are of five litre capacity. The other eight are can bombs all ready to use. These eight can bombs are of one litre capacity. No one can vouch if the Maoists would have left it unused in this Panki by poll.
SP latehar Anoop Birtharey has confirmed the recovery of 13 IEDs all in a ready to use position. Birtharey said these were stocked by the Maoists some six or seven months back only to be used by them but before that our brave boys did the finishing job for the Maoists by way of laying hands on these IEDs which were buried down the earth. The 13 IEDs would be destroyed by BDS team called in there added SP.
Birtharey further said the five IED filled pressure cookers were buried at one place while the eight IED filled can bombs were buried at two places. No utensil other than where the IEDs were stuffed with was found added SP. There were pressure cookers and aluminium cans only.
Asked as to how latehar police put its fingers at ground where buried Maoists’ IEDs BIrtharey said, “Maoists had blown up schools at Newar, Balu Herhehunj which caused enormous discontent and anger among the poor of these places who got disenchanted by the Maoists. Again DGP got set up a forward security post at Serendaag and this security post came as a whiff of freedom to the poor who were leading a life of shackles of the Maoists for the last twenty years or so. These poor trust us. They believe us. And it brings in lots of inputs for us.”
The latehar SP said, “We went tough with the supporters of the Maoists. The Maoists supporters were made to sit in the police station and reply to tough questioning by the police. This exercise of the police made the supporters most upset. And these recoveries are a resultant of a strategic planning of the latehar police.”