Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh on Tuesday dropped hints that his government may ignore the Centre’s directive to take two IPS officers, posted in Dantewada, to task in connection with the April 6 massacre of 76 security personnel at Chintalnar by the Maoists.
“Taking action against anybody is not an issue. What is needed is that lessons must be learnt from such incidents to prepare better and effective strategies to counter the Maoist menace”, Mr Singh told reporters here.
The Centre had earlier shunted out three senior CRPF officers overseeing anti-Maoist operations in Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, holding them guilty for “command failure” that led to the April 6 Maoist carnage in Dantewada, as per the recommendations of the E.N. Rammohan committee, which probed the incident.
The Union home ministry has also directed the state government to take action against Dantewada superintendent of police (SP) Amresh Mishra and inspector general of police (IG) (Bastar region) T.J. Longkumar.
Apparently sensing that the state government’s attempt to bail out two Dantewada police officers may invite displeasure from the Centre, the chief minister had a late night meeting with governor Sekhar Dutt here on Monday reportedly to convince him about his stand on the issue, sources close to Mr Singh told this newspaper.
“The chief minister had a one-to-one discussion with the governor at the Raj Bhavan for about an hour. The issue about Centre’s order to fix responsibility on two Dantewada police officers cropped up during the meeting,” official sources said.
“The chief minister is keen to avoid any confrontation with the Centre on the issue. Hence, he sought to convince the governor that it would be unwise to punish the two police officers at this juncture,” sources close to Mr Raman said.
“Mr Singh is perhaps preparing the ground to give a satisfactory reply to Union home minister P. Chidambaram, who visits the state on June 2, on his government’s decision not to disturb the two police officers,” sources disclosed.
***
CRPF denies reports of losing wireless set
age correspondent
Raipur
May 25: The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) on Tuesday denied the reports that the jawans of the paramilitary force had misplaced a wireless set during Dantewada operation last month, that helped the Maoists to set up an ambush on them on April 6.
“The CRPF team, involved in last month’s area domination exercise in Dantewada, had not lost any wireless set. No member of the team has ever reported about such incident,” a senior CRPF officer told this newspaper.
The arrested Maoist leader Barsa Lakhma reportedly told the police that the walkie-talkie, misplaced by the CRPF team during area domination operation in Chintalnar area, was found by the local rebel unit.