Chinese-made hand grenades were among almost a truck load of arms, explosives, and other Naxal materials that were recovered from a Maoist hideout on a hillock in Chhattisgarh’s rebel stronghold Kondagaon district by security forces, the police said on Wednesday.
This was said to be the biggest haul of Naxal arms in insurgency-hit Bastar region in recent times by forces. Significantly, the Naxal dump was seized from the area, identified as liberated zone by the Maoists.
“The search party had to walk about 20 km in the hilly area and then cross the flooded river of Bambaradi to reach Ghodapara hillock close to Kejang village to raid the Maoist hideout following a tip off. The arms dump site is so inaccessible that we had to deploy a helicopter to transport the seized Naxal materials to district headquarters of Kondagaon”, additional superintendent of police (Naxal operation) of Kondagaon district Surjeet Attri told this newspaper on phone. The seizure included four Chinese made hand grenades, four rocket launchers, 30 booby-trap corsets, 20 pipe bombs, around a quintal of explosives, detonators, wires, batteries, electronic gadgets, a Chinese made bag full of daily use garments, an electronic voting machine, and other Naxal materials.