Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Apr 4: The Police recovered bullet-riddled bodies of 17 jawans in the jungles of Chhattisgarh on Sunday raising to 22 the number of security personnel killed in a fierce gun battle with the Maoists, one of the biggest incidents of massacres in more than a year.
At least 30 security personnel also sustained injuries, several of them critically. Both the union home minister Amit Shah and he Chhattisgarh director general of police D M Awasthi expressed the apprehension that the casualty figure might still go up. Awasthi said at least one more jawan was still “missing.”
Both Shah and the Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, who were campaigning in the Assam elections for the BJP and the Congress respectively, left their schedules half way and returned following the gory incident.
Shah was scheduled to address three election meetings on Sunday but returned to Delhi after addressing the first meeting and held a high-level meeting in the national capital to beef up the security in Chhattisgarh. At his behest, the Central Reserve Police Force chief Kuldeep Singh left for the tragedy site where a number of CRPF jawans were among the security personnel killed. Shah has promised to give “a befitting reply at the right time” to avenge the killings of the security personnel.
It was not clear if it was a trap led by the Maoists to lure the security forces to the forest where they ruled supreme. After the gun battle on Saturday inside a forest near Jonaguda which falls in Bastar’s Bijapur and Sukma district border, in which five jawans were killed and about 30 injured, the police found 18 of their colleagues “missing.” In the massive manhunt launched on Sunday, 17 bullet-riddle bodies were found while one was still “missing.” The police also claimed that a number of Maoists had been killed in the encounter but so far had been able to find only two bodies including that of a woman Naxalite, the police said.
As details of the encounter keep emerging, it appeared to be one of the biggest attacks on India’s security forces in the last few years. Not much is known about whether the Maoists also suffered losses, or what kind of weapons they used against the security forces. But the possibility of this being a planned attack is not being dismissed yet.
According to reports, the security forces were believed to have been fed with tip-offs that the top Maoist leader Madvi Hidma linked with 2013 Jhiram Ghati killings in which over 30 people, including senior leaders of Chhattisgarh Congress, were killed, was hiding in the forest of Bijapur.
On Friday night, separate teams of security forces launched a massive anti-Naxal operation in South Bastar forests. The joint operation was launched from five places — Tarrem, Usoor and Pamed (Bijapur), and Minpa and Narsapuram (in Sukma).
The gunfight took place when the patrolling team that was dispatched from Tarrem was inside the forest near Jonaguda. Cadres of the Peoples’ Liberation Guerilla Army battalion ambushed the team and there was heavy firing for hours. It was believed that at least 200 to 300 Maoists were involved in the attack on the security forces.
It is not yet clear whether the tip-offs were traps to draw security forces to the spot or whether the anti-Naxal operation actually stirred one of the layers that protect Hidma. Hidma’s security cover starts from almost one kilometre. The top Maoist leader at the time of the encounter might have been in the vicinity, which triggered the heavy firing.
After the encounter, Naxals looted more than two dozen weapons from security personnel, media reports said quoting CRPF sources.
The home minister, however, said in Delhi the exact number of casualties was still being ascertained. “As far as the numbers are concerned, both sides have suffered losses and exact casualty figures cannot be ascertained immediately,” Shah said.
“Our securitymen have lost their lives, we will not tolerate this bloodshed and a befitting reply will be given at an appropriate time,” he added. Before leaving Assam, he gave tributes to the soldiers and said the soldiers’ sacrifice won’t go in vain.
The soldiers who have been killed include personnel from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), its elite unit CoBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action) and the District Reserve Guard (DRG), the police said.
The dead include personnel from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), its elite unit CoBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action) and the District Reserve Guard (DRG), the official said. It was not clear how many were from which unit.