Mumbai: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has filed a chargesheet against eight arrested and four absconding accused in connection with killing of 15 Quick Response Team (QRT) personnel and a civilian driver in an improvised explosive device (IED) blast carried out by Maoists in Gadchiroli district in May.

The agency has claimed that the investigation has established that accused persons are members of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist).

According to the NIA, the accused entered into a conspiracy to destabilise the government and, in pursuance of the directions of their senior cadre members and office-bearers, carried out the killing of police personnel, in coordination with the military wing of the CPI (Maoist).

The investigating agency has also said that the probe has further revealed that the attack was carried out to avenge the killing of 40 Naxals in an ambush by security personnel in April 2018 in two separate encounters in Gadchiroli.

According to NIA accused persons had hatched the conspiracy and planted an IED below the culvert on Kurkheda-Purada Road near the Jambhulkheda/ Lendhari village, Gadchiroli in the intervening night of April 28 and 29, 2019. Later, a team of Naxals set ablaze and damaged 27 vehicles of the Amar Infrastructure company, which was engaged in construction work in the early morning of May 1.

As the QRT reached the spot in a civilian vehicle to carry out an investigation, the arrested accused carried out the blast using the IED. Thereafter, the Naxals looted weapons, ammunition, walkie-talkie sets and other material of the QRT and fled into the jungle.