The government said on Wednesday that the 62nd Battalion, which lost 75 of its personnel during the bloody encounter with Naxals in Dantewada last month, was not trained by the army.
The CRPF is also looking at the second option of inducting a new company (around 125 men) into the 62nd battalion to be deployed in the dense jungles of Chhattisgarh to undertake anti-Naxal operations.
'The biggest game changer has been the belief among Maoists that they can surrender and join the mainstream'
The truck carrying troopers of 168 battalion of the Central Reserve Police Force met with an accident in Datewada few hours after midnight on Sunday.
A cache of explosives and weapons was also seized from the encounter site, he added.
Maoists on Wednesday late night opened fire on five separate CRPF camps in quick succession in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh, triggering gunbattles, but there was no immediate report of casualties.
The Central Reserve Police Force deployed commandos of the Special Armed Force in the Naxal-infested forests of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh where Maoists had trapped and gunned down 76 security personnel earlier this week.
Seven CRPF men were killed on Wednesday and their weapons looted after Naxals carried out a deadly landmine blast on their vehicle in the jungles of the worst Naxal-affected Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh.
In the deadliest attack on security forces, Maoists trapped and gunned down 76 security personnel during Operation Green Hunt, an offensive against the Left-wing extremists, on Tuesday morning in the thick forests of Mukrana in Dantewada district of Chattisgarh.
"It is certain that the information about their movement was leaked. Somewhere or at some stage this has happened. The boys were doing a surprise non-operational movement and hence were in mufti. We are looking into it," CRPF Director General K Durga Prasad said.
In the first fallout of the Dantewada massacre, the Central Reserve Police Force on Friday shunted out Deputy Inspector General Nalin Prabhat and two other officers for their alleged lapses.
About 300 to 400 Naxalites carried out the attacks on the camps of the paramilitary personnel at Chintangufa, where 75 CRPF men and a policeman were killed in the worst Maoist strike two weeks ago, Kanker Lanka, Potampalli and Bheji in quick succession beginning at around 1930 hours, sources said.
An alert has been sounded in the anti-Naxal operations theatre of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand following a "spike" in IED blasts and recoveries, including that of a device rigged with beer bottles and a small antenna for remote control explosion. The uptick in improvised explosive device (IED) recovery and blasts has been noticed as multiple security forces move into core Naxal areas to meet the Union government's deadline of wiping off Left Wing Extremism (LWE) from the country by March 2026.
The Central Reserve Police Force has constituted a Court of Inquiry against three of its officers and a retired inspector general, shunted out of Chhattisgarh following a report on the Dantewada massacre by Naxals, to look into the "specific acts of omission and commission" by them.
Originally hailing from Andhra Pradesh, the 67-year-old was involved in indoctrination and radicalization of youth and also responsible for numerous Maoist attacks in Chhattisgarh, resulting in the death of civilians and security personnel, they said.
Naxalites blew up the mini-goods van in which the security personnel were travelling by using an Improvised Explosive Device (IED), police sources said.
The explosive, however, remained "undetected" during the demining exercise conducted a day before the attack on Wednesday, they said.
Three Maoists were killed in an encounter with security personnel in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district on Sunday. The gunfight broke out in the morning at a forest in the Indravati National Park area when a joint team of security personnel was out on an anti-Naxalite operation. The bodies of the three Naxalites were recovered along with firearms and explosives.
The incident took place in the morning under Jagargunda police station area when a team of the CRPF's 165th battalion was out on an anti-Maoist operation, a police official said.
As many as 14 Maoists were killed in an encounter with security personnel in Chhattisgarh's Bastar region on Friday, a senior police official said. However, ANI has put the toll at 30.
With this incident, 154 Naxalites have been gunned down by the security forces in different encounters in Chhattisgarh so far this year, the police said.
The Central Reserve Police Force contingent, which was massacred by Maoists in Dantewada, lost heavily because of a misreading of the ground situation and walked into a Maoist trap, Chhattisgarh police chief Viswa Ranjan said on Thursday. "The unfortunate part is that in this (Dantewada) incident, they lost heavily because of a misreading of the ground situation, the cause of which may not be the (lack of) training, as many people are saying," he said.
Home Minister P Chidambaram on Friday accepted 'full responsibility' for the Dantewada massacre, saying, "The buck stops at my desk".A group of over 1,000 Maoists had slaughtered 75 Central Reserve Police Force personnel in an ambush in the thick forests of Mukrana in Dantewada, Chhatisgarh on Tuesday. "I have been asked directly or indirectly where the buck stops after the attack. The buck stops at my desk," he said at a CRPF function in New Delhi.
Here is the timeline of major Naxal attacks in Chhattisgarh.
In one of the deadliest blows to Naxalites in Chhattisgarh, security forces on Sunday gunned down 31 rebels, including 11 women, in a fierce encounter in the state's Bijapur district, police said.
Former Border Security Force director general E N Rammohan, appointed to inquire into the circumstances leading to the massacre of 76 security personnel by Naxals in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district, has begun his probe.
It had organised its 83rd anniversary event last year in Jammu after the government asked all paramilitary or CAPF to hold these events outside the national capital.
A major tragedy was averted after two Naxal-planted landmines carrying 50 and 25 kg explosives were unearthed from a national highway in Dantewada on Monday, barely days after an IED blast left eight CRPF personnel dead in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district.
Tuesday's dastardly ambush of Naxals at Dantewada, which claimed the lives of 75 CRPF jawaans and policemen who were on their return path from an overnight search operation, raises many unanswered questions. Rediff.com's Sheela Bhatt speaks to local journalists, politicians as she tries to bring forth the flipside of the massacre.
Moti Ram Awalam (30) was an active member of "PLGA Battalion No 1", considered the strongest military formation of the outlawed movement, headed by wanted Maoist "commander" Hidma, and was carrying a reward of Rs 8 lakh on his head, a police official said.
In a major breakthrough, the Chhattisgarh police have arrested six persons, including self-styled Naxal commander Barsa Lakhma, who were allegedly involved in the gunning down of 76 security personnel in Dantewada in April."We have arrested six people, including Lakhma, on Sunday night from Morpali," said Superintendent of Police Amresh Mishra.The six were allegedly involved in the killing of 75 CRPF personnel and one state police constable on April 6.
Hours after Naxals struck in a big way in Chhattisgarh on Friday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was briefed by Home Minister P Chidambaram on the incident and the strategy being adopted by his ministry to tackle the menace of naxalism in the wake of the worst-ever attack.
The Maoists are at it again. According to reports, the Naxals fired at CRPF camps in Dantewada, Bijapur and Narayanpur districts of Chhattisgarh late Wednesday night.
Naxals looted six automatic weapons -- two AK-47s and as many INSAS and self loading rifles -- of the deceased personnel.
The majority of CoBRA teams, whose commandos are expected to have tough mental and physical attributes, are deployed in various Maoist violence affected states while a few are based in the northeastern states for undertaking counter-insurgency operations.
Home Minister P Chidambaram and the Central Reserve Police Force strongly defended the battalion that was massacred in Dantewada on Tuesday saying they were properly trained, differing with Army chief General V K Singh on the issue.
Two Central Reserve Police Force commandos were killed in an IED blast triggered by Naxalites in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district early on Tuesday.
The skirmish took place in the wee hours in the restive Dabba-Kunna hills when the joint team of the CRPF and STF was out on an anti-Maoist operation.
While they were cordoning-off a forested patch near Pariya village, the Naxals triggered an IED.
The new battalion, numbered 241, was named Bastariya because it included recruits from Bijapur, Dantewada, Narayanpur, and Sukma districts.
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