M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, March 1: The TSPC extremists utilised their wits rather than their weapons to save themselves from a security force thrashing.
They traded fire with the security forces, but they bailed out, thanks to a child. And it is here that the security forces regret the TSPC’s creativity. The combat was a wits’ duel in which the two sides attempted to deceive each other.
Palamu police and the 134th battalion of the CRPF have regrets more than any cheer in the wake of an encounter with the TSPC extremists post-midnight of February 27 details of which were made known by the SP Palamu Chandan Kumar Sinha and Commandant of the 134th battalion of the CRPF Sudesh at their joint press conference held today.
The SP said, “We drove away and dislodged the TSPC at Turkun human habitat under the Naudiha Bazar police station but we could not get their arms.”
“We inflicted injury to TSPC’s top cadre Ranjan but his cadres carried him away. We could not nab him,” he added.
Commandant of the 134th battalion of the CRPF Sudesh said, “Our boys did not have any tracking dog otherwise our joint forces could have trailed behind the injured Ranjan whose blood drops we found for about one and a half kilometre.”
Sudesh said the boys had a sniffer dog to trace the booby trap. However, the two top cops had the satisfaction that this encounter was not a failed one. It was a success with different proportions.
“We got a tip-off about a huge contingent of 22 of TSPC’s Ranjan, Nishant, Ujjawal, Harender, Bachhan etc and without losing any precious time our police along with the company of the 134 bn of the CRPF rolled out at night to take on the TSPC,” said the SP.
The TSPC, however, brought a child on the scene and this tactic of human shield by the TSPC was a smart move but they were cowardly as they could not muster the courage to fight police-CRPF combined for more than 30 minutes.
The SP further said that the force stopped the retaliatory firing and became restrained in their assault.
The TSPC exploited the human shield to its full potential. The TSPC took advantage of the human shield and the paused firing to flee.
“Our regret was that had the child not appeared and the TSPC not employed the human shield then there would have been a far different script of tragedy for the TSPC,” the SP added.
Security forces could not nab the injured Rajan, however, they picked up a quack identified as Amresh who had given Ranjan the first medical aid after the encounter.
Security forces also nabbed a Bantu who used to provide all sorts of things to the TSPC. Amresh and Bantu have been remanded in judicial custody today.
Security forces rubbed hands as they could not get the arms of TSPC. The seizure of the ammunition is also meagre. It is 7 rounds of the AK-47 only. Apart from them, food items, mobile chargers, blankets, cell phones and other things were seized by the police.
