Suspected Naxals on Friday ambushed a 16-member police party near Netnar in Chhattisgarh’s insurgency-hit Bastar district, killing six troopers and injuring three others.
The police said two members of the police party were still missing.
The police team was returning from Netnar in eight motorcycles after inspecting the local forest guest house, which was blown up by Naxals late on Thursday night, when the rebels ambushed them by triggering landmine blast at around 11 am.
The landmine hit the first bike killing its driver and pillion rider on the spot. The rest seven motorcycles were thrown several ft into air under the impact of the explosion.
Later, the ultras opened indiscriminate fire on the police team, giving them no scope to regroup to counter the attack.
“Six jawans were killed and three others were injured in the Naxal attack. Two other members of the police party were still missing”, additional superintendent of police (ASP) (Naxal operation), Sujeet Kumar, told this newspaper.
All the three injured were carried to Jagdalpur hospital, nearly 35 km from attack site, in an ambulance of a local NGO.
“After destroying the forest guest house, the Naxals waited in the jungles for the whole night anticipating arrival of a police team,” Mr Kumar said.
The Naxal attack was believed to be led by Deva, secretary of Darva divisional committee, active in the area, he said.
According to Mr Kumar, Netnar, a forested village falling under Kanger National Park, is not known to be a Maoist stronghold. However, the Darbha divisional committee of the outlawed CPI (Maoist) has, of late, made several attempts to take control of the area.
A rescue team comprising a unit of Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA), CRPF jawans and district force of Chhattisgarh police has been dispatched to the spot in around 50 motorcycles to save the two missing policemen.
However, the dead and injured policemen had to wait at the attack site for nearly four hours before any medical or security help reached reach them.
When a local television news channel team reached the spot to cover the incident, a jawan pleaded with them to immediately flash the news so that they could be rescued before being killed by Naxals.