KUMUD JENAMANI
Jamshedpur, July 24: A CRPF jawan was injured as he fell victim to an IED blast taking place during an anti-insurgency operation going on in the Kolhan forest division in West Singhbhum on Monday.
Identified as Chandra Pratap Tiwari, the injured jawan belongs to CRPF’s 197 battalion and has been airlifted to a Ranchi-based private hospital for treatment immediately after the incident occurred.
The IED explosion took place at a forest patch near Tumbahaka village under the Tonto thana area in the Kolhan forest division at about 9.30 am today.
West Singhbhum SP, Ashutosh Shekhar said the CRPF jawan had sustained splinter injuries in the blast and his condition is stable at the Ranchi-based hospital where he was airlifted for treatment.
Earlier on July 17, a CRPF official of CRPF’s 60 battalion was injured in an IED blast on a mud road between Hathiburu and Kuida under the Goelkera thana area in the Kolhan forest division. The injured official Devendra Kumar was too injured while participating in an anti-insurgency operation now underway there.
It may be mentioned here that following being ousted from the strategic Sarahna forest in West Singhbhum, the Naxals belonging to the outlawed CPI-Maoist outfit have sneaked into the Kolhan and Porahat forest divisions of the district since January this year.
Having come to know about the rebels’ presence in the twin forest divisions, the police and paramilitary forces have begun the anti-insurgency operation to eliminate them. But as the Naxals, including some top leaders, have planted an unspecified number of IEDs in and around the two forest divisions, the police and paramilitary forces have fallen victim to the blasts while carrying on the operations.
So far over one-and-half-a-dozen CRPF jawans have been injured and about a dozen villagers killed in the IED blasts triggered by the Naxals in the two forest divisions.
