In a close shave for the security forces a day ahead of Assembly by-elections, one suspected Maoist has been killed after being spotted trying to plant Improvised Explosive Device (IED) near Onegara village under Kisko block in lohardaga on Sunday. The incident took place ahead of Monday bypolls.
“The security forces, after spotting the person doing somthing suspicious near a banner put earlier by naxals, tried to intercept but he started running away from the spot as soon as he saw them. Meanwhile, the bag he was carrying fell down and exploded, injuring the person,” said lohardaga SP Kartik S.
The person has been identified as Basudev Oraon who immediately after that airlifted to get him treated at Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), but succumbed to his injuries on the way to Ranchi, added the SP.
The police apprehend that Oraon was possibly making an attempt to plant IED on the road to target the police party who were likely to move during the poll duty. Extensive search operation has been launched in the area to look for any other such attempt following the incident. Meanwhile, adequate security arrangements have been made to conduct free and fair poll in the constituency.
“After a detailed security analysis of the area, we have deployed enough forces for by-poll. All efforts have been made so that free and fair polls are conducted in lohardaga,” said the SP. Use of chopper will also be done during the polls to keep a close eye on the polling process to avoid any untoward incident during the polls.
As many as 35 companies of Paramilitary forces along with state police force have been provided to the district administration for conducting the polls. Armed security forces with patrolling parties on the roads, will be ensured at each of the booths to provide secured atmosphere for polling to the people of lohardaga on Monday.
“To conduct elections in far-flung areas, polling officials have already been dropped to their respective clusters who, will then go to their booths by foot or through vehicles provided to them by administration,” said Kartik.
As per the district administration, out of a total of 272 polling booths in lohardaga, 210 of them have been identified as sensitive and most sensitive ones. Besides JJMP and other splinter groups, lohardaga is largely affected by CPI (Maoists).