CRPF Director General K Durga Prasad on Friday ruled out any sabotage or leakage of information from within the force or from other security forces about the movement of the seven paramilitary personnel killed at Melawada in Dantewada on Wednesday.
He said the Naxals had planned a “deliberate ambush” and brutally killed seven of its troops, travelling to deliver a cooler for an ailing sniffer dog, in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada and a court of inquiry is on to find out how the information of the “secret” movement was leaked.
Prasad said the landmine blast that took place near the Melawada village on March 30 was a “setback” for the paramilitary and they are looking at new measures and protocols to “avoid” such incidents in the future.
“However, there will be no knee-jerk reactions. We will take considered action,” he told reporters here.
The DG, who came back to the force headquarters here after a visit to the ambush spot on Thursday, said the Naxals shot from a “close range” three jawans after they were thrown out of the vehicle by the impact of the blast and lay almost lifeless on the road.
“No one was supposed to know this. But some one saw their movement and then passed on the information (to Naxals),” he said.
Prasad said he would not like to hazard a guess from where the information was leaked as the TATA-709 vehicle which was sent to fetch an air cooler for an ailing Belgian Malinois patrol dog of the force could have been “spotted” while either leaving the force camp at a place called Renganar or from a market place from where four more troops, who were going to their camp after leave, boarded the ill-fated four-wheeler.
Seven Central Reserve Police Force men were killed in the deadly blast carried out by Maoists that left a massive six-feet deep crater on the road in the worst Maoist violence-affected Dantewada district of the State.
The CRPF boss said it is suspected that Naxals dug a “fox hole tunnel” from near a culvert to plant almost 40-50kgs of explosive beneath the ‘pucca’ black top road.