12 CRPF personnel killed in Maoist attack in Sukma of Chhattisgarh, weapons looted too
Senior Correspondent
NewsBits.in
Raipur/Bastar: In the first major incident in 2017, a dozen personnel of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were killed in a Maoist attack in Sukma of Bastar region in Chhattisgarh on Saturday morning.
Three more jawans were seriously injured and Maoist guerillas looted at least 10 weapons from the CRPF team that was attacked.
Sources said that the Maoists exploded IEDs and fired indiscriminately at the jawans of 219 battalion of CRPF at Kottacheru between Injaram and Bhejji of Sukma. About 100 personnel were out for road opening work in the area when they were caught in the attack.
The attack killed 11 men on the spot while another died on the way to hospital. Among those dead are one inspector, two sub-inspectors, one head-constable and eight constables
The major attack comes exactly two years after the 2014 Jhiram attack (of March 11) that killed 15 CRPF personnel.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has extended condolences over the death and sought briefing from union minister Rajnath Singh. The home minister was expected to arrive in Raipur by Saturday evening to take stock of the situation.
Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh has said that the attack is frustrated action of the Maoists who are finding their grounds shaky in the state. Special director general (naxal operations) DM Awasthi convened a meeting following the incident in which officials of various security forces participated.
Slain personnel:
HV Bhatt, Nainital (Uttarakhand), Narendra Kumar Singh, Darbhanga (Bihar), Mangesh Pandey, Bhandara (Maharashtra), Rampal Singh Yadav, Kannoj (UP), Nand Kumar Atram, Chandrapur (Maharashtra), Satish Chandra Verma, Pratapgarh (UP), K Shankar, Villupuram (Tamil Nadu), Jagjit Singh, Gurdaspur (Punjab), Suresh Kumar, Kangra (Himachal Pradesh), VR Mele, Wardha (Maharashtra) and Jagdish Prasad Vaishnavi (Rajasthan).
Those injured are Jagdish Prasad Nisode, Jaidev Parmanick and Mohd Salim.
