10 CRPF Personnel Killed in Chhattisgarh IED Blast: Locals Complicit?
Image Source: The Indian Express
On Wednesday, 10 District Reserve Guard (DRG) personnel and their driver were killed in a Maoist attack in Dantewada district, Chhattisgarh. According to a preliminary assessment by Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), the Maoists received signals about the presence of uniform-clad jawans when some locals stopped the vehicle just 100 meters from the IED point, asking for some donation for Aamaa festival. Minutes before the blast, another vehicle in the convoy, carrying two arrested Maoists, had crossed the same point safely. The IED blast was triggered between 1 pm and 1.30 pm on the Aranpur road, around 50 km from the district headquarters. The events that led to Wednesday’s attack started on April 18 when a convoy of Congress MLA Vikram Mandavi from Bijapur district came under Maoists’ fire. After this incident, a special operation was launched and DRG personnel came from their headquarters in Dantewada town in civil hired vehicles to Aranpur. The officer said they received information about the presence of armed Maoists near Aranpur, and the team immediately swung into action. According to a Central intelligence officer, protocol dictates that security forces move forward during an operation only after receiving specific intelligence inputs and sanitisation of the route. In the preliminary assessment, it also came to the fore that the driver had stopped the vehicle just 100 meters before the IED point, and there is a strong possibility that the locals signalled the Maoists about the presence of DRG jawans carrying weapons. The officers have also mentioned that this incident is a repeat of the 2021 Bukintor attack when an IED blast between Camp Kadenar and Kanhargaon killed five jawans and injured 13 others.
Re-reported from the story originally published in The Indian Express
