Maoists planned to avenge Apr 3 killings: Intelligence suggested major attack in Chhattisgarh

Security forces received inputs of a possible attack after Maoist leader Nand Kishore was arrested by the security forces from Jharkhand's Daltonganj on April 3 this year.

Dantewada (Chhattisgarh): The Intelligence Wing of the Chhattisgarh police had warned of a possible Maoist attack in the state, particularly on the security forces to avenge the killing of their top leader recently. The revelation comes in the wake of the deadly IED attack by Maoists against security forces in Dantewada on Wednesday in which 10 policemen and one civilian driver were killed.

The inputs of a possible attack were gained after Maoist leader Nand Kishore was arrested by the security forces from Jharkhand's Daltonganj on April 3 this year. The Maoist ideologue who carried a reward of Rs 5 lakh on his head was arrested during an encounter with a combined police force in Grahe forest under the Lawalong police station area of Jharkhand's Chatra district.

During interrogation, 50-year-old Kishore had told the interrogators that Maoists were planning a deadly attack against the security forces to avenge the killing of their cadres. The arrested Maoist was referring to the incident when the joint forces, on April 3, killed five top Maoists, including Gautam Paswan and Ajit Oraon alias Charlies.

Sources said that the killing of Charlies was a huge blow to the Maoists because he was the brain behind most of the Maoist attacks in recent times. Charlies was the technical expert for the Maoists and had even developed improvised missiles for them. He had also made rocket launchers for the Naxalites on the Jharkhand-Bihar border. He had received training from the Naxalites of Telangana and Chhattisgarh.

Not only that, Gautam Paswan and Charlies took a leading role in the killing of ten CoBRA soldiers at Gaya and Aurangabad border in Bihar in 2016. Keeping in view of the increasing Maoist attacks the security forces launched an offensive against them along the Jharkhand-Bihar border. In June 2022, the security forces launched a campaign against the Naxalites in the Chhakarbandha area on the Jharkhand-Bihar border, during which they recovered more than six landmines and many documents revealing the planned attacks.

Though the Chatra encounter was a huge success for the forces, they had to pay their price too. The attack on Wednesday might be a fallout of the anger of the Maoists. There is no doubt about the fact that the Dantewada attack caused major damage to the security forces. Sources in the intelligence have issued alerts that there might be similar attacks across the country.