Three Naxals, including two women, were on Saturday gunned down by security forces at two different places in Chhattisgarh's insurgency-hit Bastar division, taking the total number of ultras killed in separate gun-battles in the region this month to 21.
Two Central Reserve Police Force jawans were killed while 10 were injured, five of them critically, when Maoists blew up a mini-bus carrying them in Gaya district on Tuesday evening.
While seven-year-old Thunderbolt is part of the Animal Transport unit of the force, 'lifeline' of the force at high-altitude forward posts, three-year-old Sophia undertakes special sniffing operations to detect IEDs with her handler in Left Wing extremism hit areas of Chhattisgarh.
The women, after their 45-day induction training and combat-stress inoculation, will be deployed in the valley to tackle stone-pelters and protestors, including women.
Communication, dated February 17 to all state governments, said the CPI (Maoist) planned to capture attention once again
In an unusual case of 'mass bunking' being confronted by the Central Reserve Police Force, 59 trainee commandos of its elite jungle warfare and counter-Naxal squad Commando Battalion for Resolute Action have gone missing from a train just before they were to report for duty in the Left Wing Extremism-hit theatre of Bihar as part of their first deployment.
The ultra groups are desperate ever since the Narendra Modi-led government had decided to demonetise Rs 500 and 1000 currency notes from the midnight of November 8 last, which had an adverse impact on the activities of naxal and extremists group in the state, Additional Director General, Jharkhand, R K Mallick said.
Post K Durga Prasad's retirement as the last full-time chief of the Central Reserved Police Force on February 28, the Union home ministry had appointed Additional DG Sudeep Lakhtakia to hold the charge in "additional" capacity.
Bad weather and hostile terrain have hampered the evacuation operation in Chhattisgarh's insurgency-hit Sukma district where armed rebels had on Saturday ambushed a team of Special Task Force killing seven personnel.
Claiming responsibility for the deadly attack on a Congress convoy, Maoists on Tuesday said their main objective was to "punish" senior party leaders including Nand Kumar Patel and Mahendra Karma for their "anti-people" policies.
As the doctors at a Delhi hospital said the condition of tribal rights activist and Aam Aadmi Party leader Soni Sori was stable and there was no threat to her life, Chhattisgarh police here denied that they had any role in the attack on her.
Twenty-five-year-old Tanushree Pareek will now be posted to command a unit along the India-Pakistan border in Punjab.
The Central Reserve Police Force top boss on Thursday said he has asked his troops deployed in anti-Naxal operations to even go to the extent of "violating" the Standard Operating Procedures if such a diversion in rules is required for operational efficiency and safety of the men.
550 live cartridges, an INSAS assault rifle, two other rifles and three self-loading rifle magazines were seized along with a huge quantity of explosives and detonators.
Workhorse 'Thunderbolt' and female dog 'Sophia' will be awarded the special medals.
The CRPF chief on Tuesday said the Maoists are "our own people" so the response against them has to be calibrated and "more humane" keeping this in mind.
The process of decision-making and making large policy moves in the force has slowed down owing to the absence of the designated chief.
The ultras for the first time this season put up pamphlets, banners and flags on Thursday, appealing to people to observe Maoist week -- from July 28 to August 3.
A Station House Officer and four police jawans were on Friday killed and three others injured, one of them critically, in a Naxal ambush in Maoist-hit Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh, police said.
Senior Indian Police Service officer Archana Ramasundram was today appointed Director General of Sashastra Seema Bal, the first woman to head a paramilitary force.
Acting Director General of the CRPF, Sudeep Lakhtakia said the ambush has "naturally called for the revision of standard operating procedures" in these areas.
A total of 2,765 posts of the civilian cadre of the Sashastra Seema Bal will be shifted to the IB command over the next year. Of these posts, 2,039 are operational.
This is one of the biggest casualties suffered by the elite COBRA unit that undertakes special jungle warfare ops.
"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.
Over 100 Naxals on Wednesday ambushed a team of security forces in Chhattisgarh's tribal belt of Bastar on the eve of Lok Sabha polls, killing three commandos of CRPF's CoBRA battalion and injuring five others including two officers in twin attacks.
'Stress, depression, PTSD and anxiety, especially relating to their domestic lives, are big issues for the men.' 'The men work in extremely difficult conditions, often with the fear of death looming large.'
Ahead of Lok Sabha polls, the Centre today reviewed the security situation in Naxal-affected states and directed security forces to foil any attempt by the rebels to disrupt the election process.
In a case of abject apathy towards the kin of a martyred soldier, the Chhattisgarh police demanded the return of Rs 10,000 it has provided to the family of a martyred special police officer for his last rites.
Seven policemen were on Saturday killed and 10 persons were injured in a gunbattle with Naxals in the Maoist hotbed of Sukma district in Chhattisgarh.
The bodies of four police officials, who were abducted on Monday by Naxals, were found in Chhattisgarh's insurgency-hit Bijapur district on Wednesday.
A special squad of American 'canine officers' have reached Delhi in order to sanitise and conduct anti-sabotage checks at some of the prime venues which will be visited by US President Barack Obama during his forthcoming visit to India.
70 per cent voting was recorded across 18 constituencies of Bastar and Rajnandgaon till 3 pm in the first phase of assembly election in Chhattisgarh, where violence by Naxals who have called for a poll boycott left a Central Reserve Police Force jawan dead.
Thrice the number of Central Reserve Police Force jawans fell prey to depression, heart attack and malaria than were killed in anti-Naxal operations across the country between 2009-2013, a parliamentary panel has found.
With an aim of countering the 'anti-developmental' propaganda of Maoists, the Central Reserve Police Force has devised a new strategy of putting up hoardings in local dialect to seek tribals' support in construction of a National Highway in Chhattisgarh's worst insurgency-hit Sukma district.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is eyeing a fourth straight term in the tribal-dominated state as the opposition Congress seeks to return to power after 15 years.
The prime minister will be visiting an education city, aimed at providing education to under-privileged children living in the area
'Maoists are enraged that the media is reporting the truth.' 'They want to physically isolate the media and psychologically isolate the villagers who have found the confidence to speak to the press about the real situation.' 'Like terrorism ended in Punjab, Naxalism will end in Chhattisgarh,' the AIIMS doctor-turned IPS officer and SP of Dantewada tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih.
Seven members of a polling team and five Central Reserve Police Force personnel were among 14 killed as Naxals struck twice on Saturday in a break of less than an hour, blowing up a bus and an ambulance in Bijapur and Bastar districts of Chhattisgarh.
A couple of years ago when the Telangana movement was at its peak, there was much talk that its formation could lead to the rise of a Naxal movement. Many Telangana supporters dismissed this view, stating that this was just another ploy by the Union government to stall the formation of the state. Vicky Nanjappa reports
With the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) planning to create disturbances to mark its decade of formation this September, police is bracing up to counter any such move and make people aware about the "futility" of the rebel movements.
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