KUMUD JENAMANI
Jamshedpur, July 12: CRPF deputy commandant, Deepak Kumar Tiwari was injured in an encounter with the Naxals at a forest stretch under the Goelkera thana area in West Singhbhum district about 120 km away from here on Wednesday morning.
Tiwari who sustained a bullet injury in his elbow was airlifted to a hospital in Ranchi immediately after the incident.
The encounter took place at a jungle known as Panchalataburu in the interior of the Naxal-infested Goelkera thana area at about 11.30 am.
The encounter started while the police and paramilitary forces were carrying out a search operation at the Panchalataburu having laid seize to the forest stretch.
The operation was launched on the intelligence input that a squad of Naxals, probably including some top rebel leaders, was anchored at the Panchalataburu. As the police and paramilitary forces began the search operation, the Naxals started raining shots at the jawans. The CRPF deputy commandant Tiwari who was leading the troops came in the firing range and was injured.
In the retaliation shots, several Naxals were suspected to have been injured. The anti-insurgency operation at the Panchalataburu is still on.
SP, West Singhbhum, Ashutosh Shekhar said that the injured CRPF deputy commandant has already been airlifted to a Ranchi hospital. He said the reinforcement of the Panchalataburu is being made.
It may be mentioned here that a big number of CPI-Maoist rebels including top Naxal leaders like Misir Besra and Anal have sneaked into the dense forest cover in Kolhan and adjoining Porahat forest divisions in West Singhbhum since the beginning of January this year.
The Naxals entered into the forest divisions having planted an unspecified number of IEDs across the dense forest cover. The police had begun anti-insurgency operations at the troubled forest cover since January 11 and are gradually making the area free from the IEDs. But while carrying out the operations, about 18 paramilitary jawans have been injured so far, mostly in the explosions of IEDs.
Unfortunately, about a dozen innocent villagers have lost their lives in the twin forest divisions due to the evil design of the Naxals who have tried to turn the forest divisions into their ‘home’ after being flushed out from Sarada forest.
