क्राइम

Improvised explosive device was planted a day or two before Dantewada attack: police

Even as a probe is on into the that left 11 persons, including 10 security personnel, dead on Wednesday, investigators suspect that the improvised explosive device (IED) used to blow up the police vehicle was planted a day or two before the incident.

Inspector General of Police (Bastar Range) Sundarraj P told journalists on Thursday that prima facie it appeared that a tunnel was dug up underneath the road to plant the explosives. He was responding to a question on whether the IED was planted under the Aranpur-Jagargunda road where the incident took place.

Later in the evening, when The Hindu visited the site, a senior officer of the Chhattisgarh police and a bomb expert from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) present there also reiterated the foxhole theory.

The trenches alongside the road made it easier to dig a hole using iron bars and rods to take nearly 60 kilogram of explosives inside. We suspect this was done a day or two before the explosion and the sheer volume of explosives resulted in the formation of a deep crater,” said the officer. It was then triggered off using cables from a tree located nearly 150 metres inside the forest alongside the road.

The officer was supervising the work of filling up the crater at the site where the parts of the exploded vehicle and human bodies were visible even more than 24 hours after the explosion.

The officer added that the Maoists were precise with their target as they had let three vehicles carrying civilians five minutes before the explosion. One of the vehicles had the same make and design as the one carrying the batch of the now slain jawans of the District Reserve Guard.

“We also suspect that they picked the specific location for the blast as this is one area within the road connecting Aranpur and Saneli villages where some kind of phone signals are available. This along with local support was vital in tracking the movements of the 50 jawans returning from an anti-Maoist operation in the jungles in four different vehicles,” said the officer. He added that decoys were placed at ritualistic check posts set up for celebrating a local mango harvest festival .

“This is celebrated at a mass scale and such check posts are set up where exchange of mangoes for some symbolic cash takes place. We suspect that this was also used to keep an eye on the movement of the jawans,” said the officer. Earlier, Mr. Sundarraj had said that further investigation was needed but this angle was also being looked into.

Meanwhile, commenting on the attack, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel said that in the last four years, 75 camps (of security forces) had been set up in the core areas of Naxalites, while earlier the camps were established only in buffer areas.

“Now, there is no need to go to Sukma to reach Jagargunda as roads have been built from Aranpur and Bhairamgarh to reach there. Puvarti [in Bijapur district], which is called the headquarters of Hidma [dreaded Naxal commander], has now been surrounded from all sides [by security force camps],” he said.