The security forces on Friday recovered at least 13 horses along with other regular stuffs being used by the rebels after an encounter with the CPI (Maoists) at Chanpipath village under Gudadari police station in Gumla. One of the seized horses was found to be dead due to bullet injury. According to police, the rebels fled the spot leaving the horses tied up with the trees after being spotted by a joint team of Jharkhand Police and CoBRA jawans following a tip-off received by them.
“This is supposedly for the first time that such a large number of horses, being used by Jharkhand’s wanted Maoist leader Arvind Ji have been recovered by the security forces,” said lohardaga SP Manoj Ratan Chauthe, who is also in-charge of Gumla SP. Earlier, the latehar police had seized three horses from the jungles during anti-Maoist operation last year.
The police entered into an encounter with the rebels numbering more than 100 for more than three hours, who finally left with their belongings, including horses tied up with the trees and huge quantity of explosives carried on their backs, Chauthe added. According to the SP, the list of recovered items includes allopathic, ayurvedic and homeopathic medicines, saline bottles, syringes, bundles of codex wires, electric wires, more than 350 detonators, laptops, over a dozen mobile phones, four motorcycles along with a trolley-full of day-to-day stuff used by the platoon. Over 35 IEDs were also recovered which were diffused on the spot, he said.
The blood trails spotted on spot also suggested that some injuries have also taken place on the other side, Chauthe said. No body, however, has been recovered from the spot. Intensive search operation has been launched followed by the encounter to trace them out.ADG (Operations) Anil Palta, IG (CRPF) RK Mishra and Zonal IG of Ranchi Range Suman Gupta along with a team of senior police officials immediately rushed to the spot to take stock of the ground realities.
“Although, we had information that Arvind, due to his old age, moves with a platoon carried on the horse backs, but no such recovery had been made so far. This is probably a recovery of its kind, where horses have been recovered,” Palta said. Palta further added that this is not for the first time that the platoon of Arvind has been intercepted by the security forces, but recovery of such a large number of horses have made for the first time in Jharkhand.
IG CRPF RK Mishra, on the other hand, claimed that this time the group of Arvind has literally been unarmed making them helpless. “Intensive gun-battle took place in the midnight on Thursday for over three and a half hours after which they disappeared in the jungles taking advantage of darkness,” Mishra added. Those who have been hit will not be able to go long, said Mishra.