The CRPF on Friday said the landmine attack by Naxals at Melawada in Chhattisgarh’s south Bastar district of Dantewada on Wednesday was pre-planned and was a “deliberate ambush” by the Maoists.
The CRPF on Friday said the landmine attack by Naxals at Melawada in Chhattisgarh’s south Bastar district of Dantewada on Wednesday was pre-planned and was a “deliberate ambush” by the Maoists. The force has ordered an inquiry to find out how the information of the “secret” movement was leaked.
Seven CRPF jawans who were on a humanitarian mission to arrange urgent medical aid for sick “Scout”, the sniffer dog of the paramilitary, were slain in the attack
CRPF chief K. Durga Prasad said the Naxal attack was a “setback” for the paramilitary and they are looking at new measures and protocols to “avoid” such incidents in the future. A court of Inquiry has been ordered into the incident.
The DG, while ruling out any sabotage or leakage of information from within the force or from other security forces about the movement of these men, asserted it is certain that Naxals “definitely would have known about our movement.”
“No one was supposed to know this. But some one saw their movement and then passed on the information (to Naxals),” he said.
“However, there will be no knee-jerk reactions. We will take considered action,” he told reporters. The DG, who visited the ambush spot on Thursday, said the Naxals shot from a “close range” three jawans after they were thrown out of the vehicle by the impact of the blast and lay almost lifeless on the road.
“There are AK-47 bullet injuries on the bodies of three troops. We are trying to ascertain if they had breathed their last and were then shot or they were alive and subsequently shot dead,” the DG said, adding the ultras closed in on the bodies to look for weapons but the men were carrying none.
Meanwhile, ground reports from the state have described how two of the seven slain jawans were subjected to barbaric treatment by Naxals even after their death. Establishing the sequence of events, the report says that the CRPF personnel were on a mission to save its sniffer dog who was hit by heatstroke.
The CRPF boss said it is suspected that Naxals dug a “fox hole tunnel” from near a culvert to plant almost 40-50kgs of explosive beneath the “pucca” black top road. “Huge explosives could have been used. The vehicle split into three pieces after the blast and this is not a job of one person.” he added.
“Scout was hit by heatstroke and needed urgent medical attention. A team of seven CRPF jawans was carrying the bomb-sniffing combat dog in a Tata 709 van from CRPF’s Bacheli camp to Bhusraj Ghati, the headquarters of the 230 battalion of the paramilitary in Dantewada district. Besides, providing medical aid to the Labrador, the team was to arrange a cooler for the dog from the Bhusraj Ghati camp”, a preliminary investigation into the incident has revealed.
The CRPF boss said it is suspected that Naxals dug a “fox hole tunnel” from near a culvert to plant almost 40-50kgs of explosive beneath the “pucca” black top road.
“Huge explosives could have been used. The vehicle split into three pieces after the blast and this is not a job of one person but an entire team of Naxal ‘dalam’ armed with weapons like AK-47 that was present in the area,” he said.
Prasad said a team of CRPF investigators who reached the spot after the blast found that the explosive was triggered from 94-metres away by joining wires as soon as the unmarked vehicle went over it.
“We have sent the electric wire used to detonate the explosives for forensic tests to understand when was it laid,” he said.
Prasad said he would not like to hazard a guess from where the information was leaked as the the TATA-709 vehicle which was sent to fetch an air cooler for an ailing Belgian Malinois patrol dog of the force could have been “spotted” while either leaving the force camp or boarding the vehicle. The DG said security forces are witnessing some smart techniques being deployed by Maoists to plant and conceal deadly improvised explosive devices in these areas and they are “going deeper inside” to plant explosives beneath normal-looking roads and travel routes.
The martyred troops belonged to the 230th battalion of the force deployed in south Bastar area for anti-Naxal operations and the DG said had been very instrumental in conducting successful operations in the past.
