At least eight bike-borne assailants set ablaze four vehicles, including a JCB machine, at Gora sand ghat under Bano Police Station in Simedga on Thursday night, police said on Friday.
They rode to the sand ghat and fired two rounds of bullet in the air to scare away the workers in the area. The armed assailants held three locals captive and snatched their mobile phones, eyewitnesses said. One of the assailants shot at the diesel tank of a dumper and the vehicle got engulfed in fire within minutes. Meanwhile, two of them threw petrol on a JCB machine and two hyva trucks and set them afire.
They later released the locals held captive but took away their phones. Other locals and workers fled the area and took refuge in a nearby jungle to save their lives, eyewitnesses told the police.
Prima facie, it doesn’t seem to be an act of any Left Wing Extremist (LWE) outfit, police said. Simdega Superintendent of Police Sanjeev Kumar, who visited the spot soon after the incident, said that the motive behind the attack is still unknown. “Armed men came on bikes and set ablaze vehicles in the ghat. For now, it looks like an act of local goons. We have launched a manhunt,” Kumar said.
The area where the incident occurred adjoins Simdega, Khunti and Chaibasa districts, he said, adding that the goons may have fled to the neighbouring districts. Police, however, suspect that local youth may have been involved in the incident.
Simdega, one of the 18 LWE-hit districts in Jharkhand, has presence of several splinter outfits too, police say. Mining activities are restricted to the mining of sand and stones in the largely backward district, which according to the government data, has at least 53 sand mines.
Local sources said that Thursday’s attack may have been executed in personal enmity against someone involved in mining sand in the area. “We will get a clearer picture once the perpetrators are arrested. They will soon be behind bars,” said Kumar.