Central Reserved Police Force (CRPF) jawans, who survived the serial IED blasts at Topchanchi and recuperating at a city hospital, on Monday said that had they been not travelling on motor bikes, it would have caused more damage. The CRPF jawans further added that it was all darkness spread around them for over five minutes after the serial blasts.
As many as six CRPF personnel received serious injuries during the serial blasts triggered on Saturday at Chitpur village under Topchanchi police station of Dhanbad, where at least 45 IEDs in a row were blown up by Maoists within seconds.
“It was darkness all around for five minutes and when we regained our consciousness we were logged completely in soil dust. As the path we were moving on was a mud road, the IEDs were planted strategically to cause maximum damage to the security forces,” said one of the injured CRPF jawan Jitendra Kumar. Moreover, the bikes were also maintaining safe distance between each other which also caused least damage to the team, added Kumar.
“As soon we regained consciousness after the blasts all of us took our positions and fired here and there so that the rebels present around us get away from the site,” said another constable Sunil Dutt who got injured in the incident.
According to jawans, the rebels probably triggered the IEDs sitting back at a hillock near the spot while human shield was there so that the security forces do not start firing on them after the blast.
“We could see people sitting at the hillock, but still we did not prefer firing on them as our bullets might have hit the innocent villagers who were probably put by the rebels as human shield,” said another jawan Rajesh Kumar who could avert injuries in the blast.The IEDs, however, were triggered by the rebels sitting back at a far away distance.”