In the third such major attack in three months which took the paramilitary force by surprise, suspected Maoists killed 26 jawans of a CRPF road opening team and injured 15 others in an ambush at Dhorai in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur district on Tuesday, the police said.
Rescue teams reached the spot late in the evening and the toll may go up, police said. A 66-member CRPF team was returning to camp when at least 90 Maoist insurgents attacked them at Jhargahati, a thickly forested area, 32 km from the district headquarters town of Narayanpur. The ambush was laid on the basis of prior information, police sources said. The Bastar IGP, Mr T.J. Longkumar, said: “The spot is surrounded by difficult terrain and forests. Reinforcements have been rushed from nearby areas. An IAF helicopter was used to transport the injured jawans.
Showing posts with label Chhattisgarh. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chhattisgarh. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Maoists kill civilians in Dantewada
At least 35 people, including 11 special police officers (tribals recruited to assist anti-Naxal operations) were killed when the passenger bus in which they were travelling was destroyed in a Maoist landmine blast at Chingawaram, in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district, nearly 480 km from here, on Monday evening.
The Centre said that the Chhattisgarh government was alerted about possible naxal attacks the Dantewada incident in which 76 CRPF personnel were killed by the left-wing ultras on April 6.
The Chhattisgarh director-general of police, Mr Vishwa Ranjan, said at least 50 people were feared killed in the incident, which occurred at around 5.15 pm. “We are still getting updates on casualties from the spot,” the DGP told reporters here late on Monday evening. The Chief Minister, Mr Raman Singh, put the toll at 35.
“The dead include 11 SPOs and 24 civilians, including women and children,” Mr Singh told reporters here Monday evening. At least 20 people, including six SPOs, were injured in the incident.
The injured have been admitted to government hospitals at Gadiras and Sukma, official sources here said.
The bus, carrying around 55 passengers, including 25 SPOs, was travelling from Dantewada to Sukma.
“This is the first time the Naxals have attacked a passenger bus. Perhaps the bus was attacked to target the SPOs,” Mr Sanjay Sharma, Sukma deputy superintendent of police, told this newspaper.
According to police sources, the Maoists detonated a powerful landmine planted by the metalled road using a remote control device.
The 70-seater bus was tossed nearly 20 feet into the air and was completely mangled. The explosion created a 10-foot crater around which the dead lay scattered.
Eye-witnesses contacted by this newspaper said local villagers and policemen rushed to the area, surrounded by thick forest, to retrieve the bodies and rescue the injured.
Reports reaching here late in the night said at least 14 bodies were still lying trapped in the mangled bus.
When reports came in last, a a rescue team were battling hard to extricate the bodies.
The Centre said that the Chhattisgarh government was alerted about possible naxal attacks the Dantewada incident in which 76 CRPF personnel were killed by the left-wing ultras on April 6.
The Chhattisgarh director-general of police, Mr Vishwa Ranjan, said at least 50 people were feared killed in the incident, which occurred at around 5.15 pm. “We are still getting updates on casualties from the spot,” the DGP told reporters here late on Monday evening. The Chief Minister, Mr Raman Singh, put the toll at 35.
“The dead include 11 SPOs and 24 civilians, including women and children,” Mr Singh told reporters here Monday evening. At least 20 people, including six SPOs, were injured in the incident.
The injured have been admitted to government hospitals at Gadiras and Sukma, official sources here said.
The bus, carrying around 55 passengers, including 25 SPOs, was travelling from Dantewada to Sukma.
“This is the first time the Naxals have attacked a passenger bus. Perhaps the bus was attacked to target the SPOs,” Mr Sanjay Sharma, Sukma deputy superintendent of police, told this newspaper.
According to police sources, the Maoists detonated a powerful landmine planted by the metalled road using a remote control device.
The 70-seater bus was tossed nearly 20 feet into the air and was completely mangled. The explosion created a 10-foot crater around which the dead lay scattered.
Eye-witnesses contacted by this newspaper said local villagers and policemen rushed to the area, surrounded by thick forest, to retrieve the bodies and rescue the injured.
Reports reaching here late in the night said at least 14 bodies were still lying trapped in the mangled bus.
When reports came in last, a a rescue team were battling hard to extricate the bodies.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
PC hints at use of air fire on Maoists
Policemen stood in grief and anger at a special ceremony held on Wednesday at Jagdalpur, Chhattisgarh, to pay homage to the 76 CRPF men killed by Maoists even as the Union home minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, told reporters there that the government may have to reconsider its policy of not using the Air Force in the fight against Naxalites.
[Naxals fired at a CRPF camp in Dantewada district late on Wednesday night, defying stepped-up security after Tuesday’s bloodiest-ever attack against the security forces, PTI reports. The Naxals fired four rounds at the CRPF camp in Palampalli village and security personnel promptly retaliated, the Chhattisgarh DGP, Mr Viswa Ranjan, said.]
In New Delhi, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, said all options, like using air power in the fight against Maoists, are “reviewed” from time to time. “I think the policy has to be reviewed practically from time to time, learning from experience. We are too close to the event to take a view that the existing policy needs to be modified,” he stated.
In Gandhinagar, the IAF Chief, Air Chief Marshal P.V. Naik, said he was not in favour of the use of air power in anti-Naxal operations but added that the IAF would be ready to join operations against the Naxals if a decision is taken.
[Naxals fired at a CRPF camp in Dantewada district late on Wednesday night, defying stepped-up security after Tuesday’s bloodiest-ever attack against the security forces, PTI reports. The Naxals fired four rounds at the CRPF camp in Palampalli village and security personnel promptly retaliated, the Chhattisgarh DGP, Mr Viswa Ranjan, said.]
In New Delhi, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, said all options, like using air power in the fight against Maoists, are “reviewed” from time to time. “I think the policy has to be reviewed practically from time to time, learning from experience. We are too close to the event to take a view that the existing policy needs to be modified,” he stated.
In Gandhinagar, the IAF Chief, Air Chief Marshal P.V. Naik, said he was not in favour of the use of air power in anti-Naxal operations but added that the IAF would be ready to join operations against the Naxals if a decision is taken.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Maoists kill 76 in savage attack
Bhopal/New Delhi, April 6: At least 76 security force personnel were killed on Tuesday when Naxalite guerrillas used guns and explosives against a surrounded Central Reserve Police Force contingent in the Mukarna forest near the village of Chintalnar-Tarmetla in Dantewada district, which lies in Naxalite-affected Bastar region of Chhattisgarh. It was one of the most savage ambushes mounted by the Naxals.
The attack came 48 hours after Union home minister P. Chidambaram visited West Bengal and told state chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee that as far as Maoist violence was concerned, "the buck stops with the chief minister".
It was early on Tuesday morning that the Maoists launched the attack on the CRPF personnel, who were returning from a search operation following "information" that they had received on the Naxalites. However, it was a "well-laid trap" that the security forces appeared to have walked into as the Maoists fired at them from atop a hillock.
Nearly 1,000 Maoists are believed to have been involved in the massacre, outnumbering the approximately 100 security personnel. The area where the combing operation was being carried is known to be a Maoist stronghold.
Chhattisgarh additional director-general of police (anti-Naxal operations) Ram Nivas told this newspaper that the Naxalites, who were heavily armed, ambushed a CRPF contingent in a forested area in Dantewada district on Tuesday morning. He said it would not be possible to give a full account of what happened as they were still in the process of assessing the situation.
The Naxalites detonated a landmine, triggered blasts and opened fire at the trapped CRPF men. The Maoist guerrillas outnumbered the security personnel and were able to inflict heavy casualties by surrounding the CRPF contingent. An injured jawan later said there were about 1,000 Maoist guerrillas firing at the patrol party.
An official source in Raipur said a helicopter was sent from Jagdalpur, the Bastar district headquarters, to rush those injured in the attack to hospital. Requesting anonymity, he said the CRPF contingent had gone on an "Operation Green Hunt" mission into the jungle and while returning "walked into the Naxalites’ trap and were massacred".
He said there is something drastically wrong with the anti-Naxal operations. It will have to be investigated, the source said, including how well motivated were the CRPF men and whether or not they were given proper jungle and guerrilla warfare training before being posted in the Naxalite-affected area. Even the performance levels of their supervisors comes under the scanner, he added.
While state police officials said the security personnel were on a mission that is part of the on-going "Operation Green Hunt" targeting the Maoists, the Centre maintained it wasn’t part of this exercise.
Following the attack, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke to Mr Chidambaram and also chaired a meeting of the National Security Council to take stock of the situation. Mr Chidambaram admitted that "something has gone drastically wrong" and added that the killings "show the savage nature of the CPI (Maoist)".
The bodies of the slain security personnel are expected in the national capital on Wednesday with the Centre having dispatched an AN-32 aircraft to transport the bodies. According to the home ministry, all security personnel involved in the search operation have been accounted for though the Maoists took away all their weapons.
In Chhattisgarh, a joint team of the BSF and state police swung into action after the bloody attack and arrested 12 suspected Maoists besides seizing their weapons from the Koilibeda area in Kanker district. Belonging to the Panidobir "dalam (unit)" allegedly led by Ram Singh, the joint team caught him along with his assistant Darsu.
The security personnel were returning after their early morning operation when they were ambushed. Literally surrounded by the Maoists, the personnel found themselves taking heavy fire and also stepping on pressure bombs. Among those who fell was a deputy commandant and an assistant commandant of the CRPF.
Dantewada SP Amresh Mishra said the Naxals first blew up a vehicle carrying CRPF personnel near Chintalnar-Tarmetla village in the district. Immediately after the blast, the CRPF personnel and a few policemen tried to take cover but then came the heavy firing from hundreds of Naxals, all well-entrenched atop a hillock.
In New Delhi, Union home secretary Gopal Pillai admitted an element of failure in the anti-Naxal operation had led to the incident. He said the massacre has strengthened the government’s resolve to give a "firmer and fitting reply to the murderers".
The home secretary, however, ruled out the use of air power in the fight against Naxalites. "I don’t think we need to use air power at the moment. We can manage with what we have. Our strategy is unfolding and we should be able to manage without air power," he stated.
The home ministry has sought details of the intelligence received by CRPF personnel which prompted such a large number of them to enter an area which did not fall within the parameters of the planned anti-Naxal offensive by the Centre. "Some information was planted on the security personnel which was so attractive that a large team went inside the jungle," home ministry sources said.
The Maoists laid the trap over days of planning, government sources said. A court of inquiry has been ordered into the incident to establish whether it was an intelligence failure on the part of the security forces, who probably did not verify the intelligence inputs they received nor reconnoitre the area, thus falling into the trap. It will also establish the sequence of events that led to the attack, a home ministry official said.
CRPF special director-general Vijay Raman rushed to the spot along with senior Chhattisgarh police officers to take stock of the ground situation. Speaking from the spot, he said on Tuesday evening it would not be possible to discuss anything at this stage.
A high alert has been declared in Mandla, Dhindori, Balaghat, Sidhi, Shahdol, Singrauli, and Umaria districts of Madhya Pradesh. These districts are known for Naxalite activity. One CRPF battalion has been deployed for Naxal-infested areas in the state.
The attack came 48 hours after Union home minister P. Chidambaram visited West Bengal and told state chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee that as far as Maoist violence was concerned, "the buck stops with the chief minister".
It was early on Tuesday morning that the Maoists launched the attack on the CRPF personnel, who were returning from a search operation following "information" that they had received on the Naxalites. However, it was a "well-laid trap" that the security forces appeared to have walked into as the Maoists fired at them from atop a hillock.
Nearly 1,000 Maoists are believed to have been involved in the massacre, outnumbering the approximately 100 security personnel. The area where the combing operation was being carried is known to be a Maoist stronghold.
Chhattisgarh additional director-general of police (anti-Naxal operations) Ram Nivas told this newspaper that the Naxalites, who were heavily armed, ambushed a CRPF contingent in a forested area in Dantewada district on Tuesday morning. He said it would not be possible to give a full account of what happened as they were still in the process of assessing the situation.
The Naxalites detonated a landmine, triggered blasts and opened fire at the trapped CRPF men. The Maoist guerrillas outnumbered the security personnel and were able to inflict heavy casualties by surrounding the CRPF contingent. An injured jawan later said there were about 1,000 Maoist guerrillas firing at the patrol party.
An official source in Raipur said a helicopter was sent from Jagdalpur, the Bastar district headquarters, to rush those injured in the attack to hospital. Requesting anonymity, he said the CRPF contingent had gone on an "Operation Green Hunt" mission into the jungle and while returning "walked into the Naxalites’ trap and were massacred".
He said there is something drastically wrong with the anti-Naxal operations. It will have to be investigated, the source said, including how well motivated were the CRPF men and whether or not they were given proper jungle and guerrilla warfare training before being posted in the Naxalite-affected area. Even the performance levels of their supervisors comes under the scanner, he added.
While state police officials said the security personnel were on a mission that is part of the on-going "Operation Green Hunt" targeting the Maoists, the Centre maintained it wasn’t part of this exercise.
Following the attack, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke to Mr Chidambaram and also chaired a meeting of the National Security Council to take stock of the situation. Mr Chidambaram admitted that "something has gone drastically wrong" and added that the killings "show the savage nature of the CPI (Maoist)".
The bodies of the slain security personnel are expected in the national capital on Wednesday with the Centre having dispatched an AN-32 aircraft to transport the bodies. According to the home ministry, all security personnel involved in the search operation have been accounted for though the Maoists took away all their weapons.
In Chhattisgarh, a joint team of the BSF and state police swung into action after the bloody attack and arrested 12 suspected Maoists besides seizing their weapons from the Koilibeda area in Kanker district. Belonging to the Panidobir "dalam (unit)" allegedly led by Ram Singh, the joint team caught him along with his assistant Darsu.
The security personnel were returning after their early morning operation when they were ambushed. Literally surrounded by the Maoists, the personnel found themselves taking heavy fire and also stepping on pressure bombs. Among those who fell was a deputy commandant and an assistant commandant of the CRPF.
Dantewada SP Amresh Mishra said the Naxals first blew up a vehicle carrying CRPF personnel near Chintalnar-Tarmetla village in the district. Immediately after the blast, the CRPF personnel and a few policemen tried to take cover but then came the heavy firing from hundreds of Naxals, all well-entrenched atop a hillock.
In New Delhi, Union home secretary Gopal Pillai admitted an element of failure in the anti-Naxal operation had led to the incident. He said the massacre has strengthened the government’s resolve to give a "firmer and fitting reply to the murderers".
The home secretary, however, ruled out the use of air power in the fight against Naxalites. "I don’t think we need to use air power at the moment. We can manage with what we have. Our strategy is unfolding and we should be able to manage without air power," he stated.
The home ministry has sought details of the intelligence received by CRPF personnel which prompted such a large number of them to enter an area which did not fall within the parameters of the planned anti-Naxal offensive by the Centre. "Some information was planted on the security personnel which was so attractive that a large team went inside the jungle," home ministry sources said.
The Maoists laid the trap over days of planning, government sources said. A court of inquiry has been ordered into the incident to establish whether it was an intelligence failure on the part of the security forces, who probably did not verify the intelligence inputs they received nor reconnoitre the area, thus falling into the trap. It will also establish the sequence of events that led to the attack, a home ministry official said.
CRPF special director-general Vijay Raman rushed to the spot along with senior Chhattisgarh police officers to take stock of the ground situation. Speaking from the spot, he said on Tuesday evening it would not be possible to discuss anything at this stage.
A high alert has been declared in Mandla, Dhindori, Balaghat, Sidhi, Shahdol, Singrauli, and Umaria districts of Madhya Pradesh. These districts are known for Naxalite activity. One CRPF battalion has been deployed for Naxal-infested areas in the state.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Government to reassert authority in Maoist areas: Chidambaram
Following a meeting with top officials of Orissa, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, Home Minister P. Chidambaram said the central government was offering troops and technology to States to take on the outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist.
Home Minister P. Chidambaram declared on Friday that states had agreed to coordinate actions against Maoist guerrillas and that the government’s goal was to reassert authority in rebel bastions.
“(Our aim is) to reassert the civil administration to be followed immediately by development in areas dominated by Naxalites for quite some years,” Mr. Chidambaram said after a meeting with top officials of Orissa, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh here.
“The meeting was successful”, the minister told reporters. “We identified progress we made. We identified steps to be taken. The operations will continue. Our goal is not to kill anyone but to reassert the civil administration to be followed immediately by development in areas dominated by Naxalites for quite some years.”
Mr. Chidambaram chaired a two-hour meeting at the State secretariat with Chief Ministers Raman Singh of Chhattisgarh and Navin Patnaik of Orissa, Maharashtra Home Minister R.R. Patil and officials of paramilitary forces.
He said that the central government was offering troops and technology to states to take on the outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist).
“My approach to the CPI-Maoist and other such banned organisations is that you will suspend violence and we will talk. But they are killing people. Even yesterday they killed two boys in Chhattisgarh who belonged to primitive tribes as they wanted to get recruited in (the Indian) army,” he said.
“The coordinated operation (against Maoists) is just a few weeks old. The progress is satisfactory and in future it will be more satisfactory. In many places Naxalites are retreating and we welcome it. But in some areas they are engaged in battle,” Mr. Chidambaram said.
Home Minister P. Chidambaram declared on Friday that states had agreed to coordinate actions against Maoist guerrillas and that the government’s goal was to reassert authority in rebel bastions.
“(Our aim is) to reassert the civil administration to be followed immediately by development in areas dominated by Naxalites for quite some years,” Mr. Chidambaram said after a meeting with top officials of Orissa, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh here.
“The meeting was successful”, the minister told reporters. “We identified progress we made. We identified steps to be taken. The operations will continue. Our goal is not to kill anyone but to reassert the civil administration to be followed immediately by development in areas dominated by Naxalites for quite some years.”
Mr. Chidambaram chaired a two-hour meeting at the State secretariat with Chief Ministers Raman Singh of Chhattisgarh and Navin Patnaik of Orissa, Maharashtra Home Minister R.R. Patil and officials of paramilitary forces.
He said that the central government was offering troops and technology to states to take on the outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist).
“My approach to the CPI-Maoist and other such banned organisations is that you will suspend violence and we will talk. But they are killing people. Even yesterday they killed two boys in Chhattisgarh who belonged to primitive tribes as they wanted to get recruited in (the Indian) army,” he said.
“The coordinated operation (against Maoists) is just a few weeks old. The progress is satisfactory and in future it will be more satisfactory. In many places Naxalites are retreating and we welcome it. But in some areas they are engaged in battle,” Mr. Chidambaram said.
