C’garh/ Bijapur Naxal blast; Killer IED planted 3 years ago under road

Raipur: The powerful improvised explosive device (IED) detonated by the Maoists near Ambeli village on Bedre-Kutru road in Bijapur district under south Bastar in Chhattisgarh on Monday killing eight jawans and a civilian driver might have been planted three years ago, police sources said.

The IED was manually detonated by the Maoists waiting around 400 meters from the blast site to target a particular SUV going in a convoy of 12 vehicles on the fateful day, a senior police officer told this newspaper, requesting not to be quoted.

The vehicle targeted by the Maoists was carrying eight jawans of the district reserve guard (DRG), the tribal counterinsurgency wing of Chhattisgarh police.

It was the 11th vehicle in the moving convoy of 12 vehicles, sources said.

The jawans of DRG and special task force (STF) were returning to their base camp in the 12 vehicles after joining a joint counterinsurgency operation in the nearby Abujhmad on Sunday.

All the eight DRG jawans and the driver of the vehicle targeted by the Maoists were killed in the IED explosion.

Sources said that the road was built around ten years ago and it was repaired three years ago after it was washed away in heavy rains.

“The Maoists may have planted the powerful IED during the repairing of the road three years ago”, the police officer indicated.

Sources said that a road opening party (ROP) comprising personnel of DRG and CRPF had sanitized the route before the convoy passed through it.

However, the killer IED had gone undetected during the sanitization by the ROP, sources said.

“The cause of the failure to detect the IED by the ROP is being probed”, the police officer said.

Meanwhile, chief minister Vishnu Deo Sai, deputy chief minister Vijay Sharma, state forest minister Kedar Kashyap and director general of police Ashok Juneja and a host of senior police officers paid homage to the eight slain jawans at Jagdalpur, headquarters of Bastar.

Mr Sai and Mr Sharm carried the body of one of the slain jawans on their shoulder as a mark of respect.