Armed leftist militants on Friday fired bullet shots at a rescue chopper of the Indian Air Force (IAF) in a densely forested patch of Sukma district in Chhattisgarh when it attempted to airlift five injured para-military troopers, officials said.
In a separate incident, three CRPF jawans injured in Bijapur district when a powerful bomb went off while in process of disposing an IED mine planted by Naxals.
“Red rebels fired a few shots at IAF chopper Mi-17 at a violence-hit Chintagufa stretch when it tried to take off with five injured troopers,’’ Sukma district superintendent of police D Shrawan told The Pioneer, adding RsRsthe flight gunner Mukesh Tiwari who had worn a bullet proof vest, received a bullet shot in his leg.’’
He informed that the IAF chopper was called out for evacuation as Naxals injured five troopers of the CRPF in a fierce encounter at Chintagufa, about 500 km south from capital Raipur, which is largely inaccessible by road.
The gunfight between unspecified number of rebels and a joint search party which was made up of CRPF and DF (District Force) broke out when Naxals were challenged at their forested hideout.
Despite shots fired at IAF helicopter and a flight gunner sustained injury, the five injured troopers (one sub-inspector and four constables) were first airlifted to Jagdalpur for urgent medical attention and later on they were rushed to Raipur where they have been put at ICUs in three different hospitals.
local police officials claimed that a few rebels were also reported to have suffered bullet injuries in retaliatory firing but they were carried away by their armed colleagues deep into the forests.
Sukma district which borders with Andhra Pradesh is one of the worst leftist militancy-hit districts of Chhattisgarh where in forested interiors red rebels run a parallel government since late 1980s.