Barely two days after seven policemen were gunned down by Naxals in Sukma, Chhattisgarh was hit by twin Maoist attacks on Monday when five Chhattisgarh Armed Force (CAF) jawans were killed and seven injured in a massive blast, while a trooper was shot by rebels who launched an attack on a Border Security Force (BSF) camp.
In the first incident, the insurgents tried to storm into a BSF camp in Kanker in the wee hours of Monday in which a trooper was killed. Officials at police headquarters here said that a few insurgents tried to sneak into a BSF camp in the Chhotebetiya forests in Kanker district’s Pakhanjoor area.
“The alert BSF jawans opened fire on rebels when they tried to storm the camp,” RK Vij, the State’s head of anti-Naxal operations said. He added that trooper RP Solanki was killed on the spot.
Vij said a rebel also died at the attack site and three Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) of 20 kg each were recovered during the combing operation near the camp. In the second attack that took place in the afternoon, the Naxals triggered a massive blast targeting an anti-landmine vehicle, just 2 km away from Cholnar camp of the CAF in Dantewada district, some 400 km South of Raipur.
Around 50 heavily-armed Naxals opened fire indiscriminately right after the blast but failed to take the jawans’ AK-47s, as reinforcements reached the spot within 15 to 20 minutes. While the Chhattisgarh Government is alarmed by the repeated high-intensity attacks, the Opposition Congress has accused the BJP Government of acting like a sitting duck.
“It’s a massive blast. They must have used around 50 kg of explosive material in the IEDs that they used to trigger the blast. The explosion was so strong that the anti-landmine vehicle keeled over onto its side. Five CAF jawans succumbed to the injuries sustained in the blast,’ Kamal lochan Kashyap, Superintendent of Police, Dantewada, told The Pioneer.
The CAF jawans were returning to Cholnar camp after an area domination drive. The injured CAF jawans were rushed to NMDC ltd-owned hospital at Bacheli and later in evening they were airlifted to Raipur as their condition deteriorated. Chhattisgarh has been witnessing a string of deadly attacks since April 11. Rebels had gunned down seven STF jawans in Sukma on Saturday, while on Sunday they burnt down 11 vehicles in Kanker.
All the attacks were reported from the sprawling Bastar region which is made up of seven districts and is spread out in an area of about 40,000 sq km. In the interiors of Bastar, the Naxals run a de facto Government since the late 1980s. Following these incidents security has been stepped up at police and para-military camps across the insurgency-hit Bastar.