Maoists kill 11 in attack on police van in Bastar
DANTEWADA: Ten policemen and a civilian driver were killed in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district on Wednesday after Maoists blew up the rented minivan they were travelling in, marking the worst attack since April 2021 in the thickly forested region that is among the last strongholds of the leftist extremist rebels.
Police said 40kg of explosives were used to make the improvised explosive device (IED) set off roughly 700m from the Aranpur police station around 2.45pm and that it was trig- gered remotely to target the second of the four-vehicle convoy — an unprotected open minivan. The personnel were returning after anti-Maoist operations 75km away. The first vehicle passed by and Maoists exchanged fire with the third vehicle.
“I was around 200 metres from the vehicle and saw the bodies blown into pieces,” said the driver of third vehicle, requesting anonymity.
Officers said they will probe whether standard norms for travelling in Maoist regions was followed, how the rebels planted an IED so close to a police station, and if the forces should have travelled in smaller groups in better-protected vehicles.
The blast left an eight-foot crater on the ground, with mangled parts of the vehicle strewn about. “We have found 150 metres long wire through which the IED was triggered by at least three Maoists who were hiding near a Mahua tree in the jungle,” said Bastar’s inspector general of police Sunderaj P.
The attack – which claimed the most casualties since 22 security personnel died in a gunfight with Maoists in Bastar two years ago – hit an arterial road critical for anti-Maoist operations and part of a trifecta of routes cutting through the heart of the rebel heartland.
“Strongly condemn the attack on the Chhattisgarh police in Dantewada. I pay my tributes to the brave personnel we lost in the attack,” said Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Union home minister Amit Shah spoke to Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel and promised all possible help. “Anguished by the cowardly attack on the Chhattisgarh police at Dantewada,” the home minister tweeted.
Baghel called the attack saddening and said the fight against Maoists is in its last stage and that the Left-wing insurgents would not be spared.
The victims were part of the District Reserve Guard (DRG), which is staffed largely by local tribal communities and some former insurgents who laid down their arms.
The attack also underlined a lingering vulnerability of the forces to IEDs – the preferred mode of attack by Maoists to limit losses and costs – especially in the forested southern tip of Chhattisgarh that borders Telangana and Odisha.