Naxalities Attack Police Party, Behead Informer

Naxals (Maoists) strike again. This time in the state of Maharashtra. Within two days of beheading an intelligence officer of Jharkhand Police they have killed 18 policemen including sub-inspector C S Deshmukh while injuring several after they were attacked indiscriminately, police said. About 15 naxals were also killed in the three hour exchange of fire. In a rerun of the Jharkhand attack the naxals also beheaded a police informer a police informer identified as Suresh Alami in Gadchiroli just before the third major naxal strike in this district. In a separate incident barely hours after before this attack, the Maoists set on fire a gram panchayat (Village Panchayat) office in the district.

The police party was on a patrol in the dense jungle areas when it was ambushed by the naxals. The police informer identified as Suresh Alami met a similar fate in Gadchiroli. The attack occurred when a police party of nearly 40 personnel came under heavy fire from 150 to 200 naxals at about 1 PM IST near Laheri police station of the district when it was returning after undertaking search operations following an intelligence input that Maoists had assembled in the area.

The incident coincided with the Cabinet Committee of Security (CSS) meeting the Prime Minster in New Delhi to review the rise in Naxal violence. This also comes in face of the Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram warning to the extremists to shun violence. The Home Minister had also talked about least involvement of the central forces in tackling the naxal threat. District Collector Atul Patne told PTI that the Left-wing extremists used sophisticated weapons on the police party which was completely outnumbered. The modus-operandi also challenges the call by Chidambaram about least involvement of central forces given the fact that the police force is ill-equipped and not well trained to counter such guerrilla attacks.

"As many as two platoons of BSF (50 personnel) and additional police force was rushed to the spot and they could manage to save the rest of the policemen caught in the heavy fire," he said. The killing took place two km from Lahiri police post in Bhamragad tehsil of the district.

Earlier this year in February, 15 policemen were killed in Naxal attacks and in May, 16 police personnel, including five women, lost their lives in another Naxal strike in the district.

IG (Nagpur) Surendra Kumar said two policemen received bullet injuries in hand and leg and were out of danger but the bodies of those slain were yet to be recovered.