Naxal fighters blow up vehicle in Chhattisgarh

Two people were injured after Maoist guerrillas blew up a civilian vehicle in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district.

Raipur: Two persons were injured after Naxal guerrillas blew up their vehicle using an improvised explosive device (IED) in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district on Tuesday, a police official said.

The incident took place near Rajpenta village between Basaguda and Tarrem villages around 9 am when the two victims were heading towards Tarrem in a multi-utility vehicle (MUV), said an official.

The vehicle was mangled due to the impact of the blast, he said.

The injured persons were identified as Mohammed Iqbal Ansari, the vehicle's owner, and Balram Pradhan, a motor mechanic, he said.

As per preliminary information, Ansari was taking Pradhan along with him to fix his truck that had stopped near Tarrem due to some technical fault, he said.

After being alerted about the blast, a police team rushed to the spot, located around 450 km from the state capital Raipur, and admitted the injured persons to a local hospital, he said.

The police suspect that the rebels might have planned to target security forces, but mistakenly attacked the civilian vehicle.

PTI