The tragedy in Basaguda forest, in which quite a good number of innocent tribals were allegedly killed in the midnight operation by security forces on June 27-28 in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district, could have been avoided, or at least scaled down, had the planners not overlooked certain “flaws” in the attack strategy, a section in the security circle here feels.
“It is no doubt a daring operation, but was not planned to perfection, leaving a lot of loopholes in it. The focus of the operation, it seems, was to surprise the Naxals gathered at Sarkeguda for maximum result. In the process, certain basic things such as response of Maoists to the attack of this nature by forces, had apparently been overlooked, causing the collateral damage of this scale,” a senior police officer told this newspaper here on Thursday requesting anonymity.
The operation was planned almost a month ago following specific intelligence inputs that two military companies of the CPI (Maoist) had been mobilised from Koraput in south Orissa and were headed to south Bastar. The mobilisation of military companies always associates with movements of top Maoist leaders.
Hence, a joint operation by CRPF and Chhattisgarh police was planned to “capture some big fish” by launching a surprise attacks on them. Accordingly, three large search parties had been mobilised in the forests of Chintalnar, Jagargunda and Basaguda in south Bastar for the purpose.
The search party mobilised from Basaguda CRPF camp had drawn fire apparently from Naxals when they reached Sarkeguda, barely 3 km away on foot. In the reported “knee jerk” reaction, the forces fired indiscriminately, leading to the killing of 17 people, including at least seven Maoists.
“It is clear that the local police had not been taken into confidence during the operation. Had the forces kept the local police in the loop in the operation, the nature of the gathering would have been known to them”, another senior police officer said.
Among the dead, seven were minors, including a girl.