KUMUD JENAMANI
Jamshedpur, January 27: The ongoing anti-insurgency operations in West Singhbhum that caused 11 jawans and a teenager to sustain splinter injuries seems to have put the belligerent paramilitary forces in a disadvantageous position temporarily.
A big squad of CPI-Maoist rebels, who are evidently hiding in the forest covers under the Tonto, Goelkera and Chaibasa mufassil thana areas, have tactically planted IEDs at the strategic points across the forest by taking advantage of dry leaves accumulated there since years.
Any attempt by the police and paramilitary forces to flush out the Naxals from those forest covers is getting hampered due to the explosion of the IEDs which are more like low-intensity pressure bombs.
According to sources, the forest department would carry out leaves-lifting work in the forests every Autumn and create fire lines to prevent widespread destruction of the forests. But the department has not done the fire-line work in those forests for a long time due to the Naxal activities, leaving layers of dry leaves to accumulate there.
As a result of the situation, despite the paramilitary forces following the standard operational procedure (SOP) while carrying out the operations in the Naxal-affected forest, they have to fall victim to the IED blast.
According to intelligence sources, two senior Naxal leaders, Misir Besra and Patiram Majhi alias Analda have taken refuge in the forest spreading across the Tonto, Goelkera and Chaibasa mufassil thana areas along with a big number of rebels.
Having come to know about the hiding Naxals in the forest, the police and paramilitary forces had begun the operation on January 11 afternoon when three jawans were injured in an IED blast in the Tumbahaka jungle under the Tonto thana area.
Unfortunately, three more jawans were injured in another blast in the same jungle the next day. After a gap of eight days, yet another jawan was injured in an IED blast at the same forest stretch. Incidentally, a 17-year-old boy also fell victim to the pressure bomb planted at the trail of a forest located in the adjoining Goelkera thana area.
The West Singhbhum superintendent of police, Ashutosh Shekhar confirmed about the accumulation of dry leaves in the Naxal-infested forests has made the job of flushing out the rebels more challenging.
“Our jawans are falling victim to the IED blasts despite they are following the SOP during the operation inside the jungle. The accumulation of dry leaves has turned out to be an advantageous thing for the Naxals to plant the IEDs under the cover of the leaves, but they can not stick to this tactic for a long time,” said the police superintendent while talking to lagatar24.com.
Meanwhile, Abhishek Bhushan, divisional forest officer, Kolhan said the forest department staff have stopped entering into forest stretches in Tonto, Goelkera and Chaibasa mufassil ever since the first incident of the IED blast took place on January 11.
