Sukma attack: Maoists rehearsed strike a week before ambush

Bhopal: The deadly attack on the CRPF party by Maoists at Sukma, Chattisgarh on April 24 had been planned a week before its execution. The ambush was rehearsed live in the jungle region, intelligence sources said on Wednesday.

Commanders of three platoons of Maoists first military battalion, Sonu, Arjun and Situ along with their unit members had camped in the Korecha- Dodede jungle in Dantewada-Sukma border in south Bastar, where the attack was planned out in the second week of this month, a senior police officer posted in Bastar said.

“It was a live rehearsal where arms and ammunition were used to hit decoy security personnel. Even local tribals were brought to the training site to use them as a shield to fine tune their attack plan,” the intelligence officer said.

“It was a pre-planned attack by Maoists,” CRPF in-charge director general (DG) Sumit Lakhatkia admitted, while addressing a press conference at Raipur in Chhattisgarh on Wednesday.

“It was planned much ahead. Even the time and place of ambush were chosen by Maoists much earlier. Movements of jawans had been kept under vigil by local villagers for several days to give shape to the plan,” he added.

Jawans who survived said women and children were used as shields by Maoists during the attack on the road opening party of CRPF jawans belonging to the 74th battalion which ventured out of their camp at Burkapal on the fateful day to provide security to the workers engaged in construction of a bridge along with a road in the area. Twenty five CRPF jawans were killed and eight others injured in the incident.

“We found bullets flying from the houses of the tribals and tree tops when we were heading towards the ambush site to rescue our colleagues trapped in the ambush,” Manoj Kumar, a paramedic working in the Burkapal CRPF camp who was in the rescue team, said. Mr Lakhatkia said the CRPF would revisit its counterinsurgency strategy keeping in view the changed insurgency situation in Bastar.