'50 kgs IED, no road-opening patrol': How Chhattisgarh DRG jawans came under Maoists' attack

A total of 11 persons, including ten district reserve guard (DRG) personnel, were killed after suspected Naxals blew up their vehicle using improvised explosive device (IED) in the Aranpur area of Dantewada district. The policemen were returning from an anti-Maoist operation that was launched after intelligence inputs.

According to sources, the Naxals had planted about 50 kilograms of IED for the attack, India Today reported.

Visuals from the attack spot showed a huge crater, almost 5-feet deep, splitting the road. Even the vehicle was completely destroyed in the attack, while bodies covered with plastic sheets were also seen in the video.

The Big Challenge

The Naxal ambush on Wednesday has highlighted what is seen as the last major challenge - foiling Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) attacks in the forested tri-junction of the Bastar region in south Chhattisgarh - faced by security forces to completely stamp out Left Wing Extremism (LWE) violence in the state, PTI reported.

The IEDs continue to be a cause of big trouble because of two factors.

The first is that as Maoists have run out of sophisticated guns, rifles and ammunition. They choose to not fight a one-on-one battle but launch surprise attacks, a CRPF officer told the news agency.

They are not always successful as the forces have learnt their lessons of not taking the 'beaten track' now, but whenever they are successful, a number of security personnel are either killed or maimed, the officer said.

"The second issue is that we still do not have foolproof technology to detect the IEDs. They are placed under blacktop roads, or hidden beneath culverts or bridges and are triggered by a person sitting far away as soon as a security vehicle or patrol is detected," he said.

Many IEDs explode even when the troops are on foot and their trigger mechanism gets activated just due to the pressure of the feet. These incidents have injured more than 100 personnel over the last two years, the officer said.

Why road-opening patrol did not sanitise the route?

It has also come to the light that a road-opening patrol did not sanitise the route that a convoy of policemen took on Wednesday.

A road-opening patrol usually consists of a small, nimble team that checks a route for a possible ambush and clears other threats ahead of the main convoy's arrival.

Such a patrol did not clear the road that the convoy took in the Maoist-infested forest in Dantewada as a local festival popular with children called 'Ama Pandum' was being celebrated some 100 metres from the ambush site, people with direct knowledge of the matter said, reported NDTV.

The attack on Wednesday is said to be the biggest strike by the Maoists on the security forces in Naxal-hit Chhattisgarh in the last two years. The area where the blast took place is around 450 km from the state capital Raipur.

Also Read: 10 jawans, driver killed in Naxal attack in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada