Raipur: The killing of three District Reserve Guards (DRG) in an encounter with Maoists in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district on Saturday has brought back the grim memories of similar attacks in the past. The three DRGs were killed while two others were injured after an encounter broke out between the security forces and the Maoists, who laid an ambush between Kunde and Jagargunda areas, on Saturday.
The timeline of Maoist attacks in Chhattisgarh: On November 29, 2003, seven police personnel were killed in a landmine attack by Maoists of the People’s War Group (PWG) between Guddipal and Modypal in the south Bastar district of Chhattisgarh. The incident occurred when Rajendra Pambhoi, the Congress candidate from Bijapur constituency, was on his way to Madded from Bijapur two days before the Assembly elections, which were scheduled for December 1 that year.
Pambhoi escaped unhurt, but seven police personnel, who were part of his security convoy, were killed in the blast. On February 9, 2006, eight Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel were killed and several others were injured as a large group of Maoists attacked the National Mineral Development Corporation store in the Hirauli area of Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh and looted 17 rifles and close to 50 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, an explosive used to detonate iron ore mines.
On March 15, 2007, at least 55 persons, including 16 personnel of the Chhattisgarh Armed Force and 39 Special Police Officers (SPOs), were killed and 12 persons were injured in an offensive by the CPI-Maoist cadre on a police base camp at Rani Bodli village in Bijapur district in the Bastar division of Chhattisgarh. In the attack, Maoists took away 39 weapons, including self-loading rifles, AK-47 rifles .303 rifles and a mortar from the police camp.
According to reports, only 11 of the 79 police personnel and SPOs posted at the camp managed to escape. Likewise, on August 29, 2007, at least 12 Security Forces personnel were killed in an ambush by the CPI-Maoist cadre near Jagargunda forests of Dantewada district in Chhattisgarh. In all, 200 armed Maoists ambushed a convoy of the Security Forces personnel while it was en route to secure an area at Tarmekla village in Jagargunda where the Maoists had blocked the construction of a road.
On November 4, 2007, around 100 cadre of the CPI-Maoist ambushed a police party near Pamedu Police Station of Bijapur District in Chhattisgarh and killed 16 security forces personnel, including six CRPF personnel. The Maoists first triggered a landmine explosion and then indiscriminately fired on the policemen killing 16 of them.
In 2008, on October 20, 12 Para-military personnel belonging to the CRPF were killed and six others injured in an ambush by the CPI-Maoists near a forest village between Modupal and Kompalli in the Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh. Bijapur SP Ankit Garg said the incident took place around 1.30 pm when CRPF men patrolling the area were moving towards the Modupal base camp.
They were attacked by over 100 Maoists, who first set off an explosion and then opened fire on July 12, 2009, cadre of the CPI-Maoist killed 30 police personnel, including an SP, in two separate incidents in the Rajnandgaon district in Chhattisgarh. Around 200 Maoists were involved in the attack. On October 8, 2009, 17 policemen were killed in an encounter with Maoists at the Laheri police outpost in Rajnandgaon.
Over 100 Maoists ambushed an elite police team that was conducting a routine exercise near the outpost bordering Chhattisgarh. There were no reports of any Maoists getting killed in the encounter, which lasted three to four hours. The following year 2010, on June 29, 23 personnel of the 39 Battalion of the CRPF were killed in a Maoist ambush in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur district.
