A woman police constable, on her way with family members to cremate her brother-in-law, was allegedly gang raped by a gang of dacoits on National Highway 75 near Jagaldaga in Latehar district of Jharkhand, police said on Saturday.
Acting Director General of the CRPF, Sudeep Lakhtakia said the ambush has "naturally called for the revision of standard operating procedures" in these areas.
Tension in the state escalated after militants ambushed Manipur Police and other state forces in the last few days that left three policemen dead and 14 others injured last Thursday.
The Jammu and Kashmir police on Monday evening detained the police sub-inspector of a local police station in connection with the killing of four civilians in firing by security forces in Gool area of Ramban district last week, which triggered widespread protests across the state.
'Last monsoon, we had them totally on the run. Their bodies were flowing down the streams,' says Chhattisgarh Home Minister Nankiram Kanwar.
At least 13 security personnel were killed on Friday when Naxals triggered a blast and then opened fire on a patrol party near Tongada village, bordering Andhra Pradesh, in the Maoist-affected district of Bijapur in Chhattisgarh. The patrol party, comprising 21 police personnel, was returning from Terla village when the rebels unleashed the attack.
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Terrorists killed two army soldiers in an ambush in the Gool area of Jammu region on Saturday.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
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.
Ahead of Congress President Sonia Gandhi and BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's rallies in Chhattisgarh on Wednesday, security forces averted a possible landmine explosion, as they diffused two Improvised Explosive Devices weighing 50 kg in the Dantewada area of the state.
The chronology of major Maoist attacks in the country in the last five years
Heads rolled in the Chhattisgarh police administration on Tuesday with the government suspending Bastar Superintendent of Police Mayank Shrivasta and shunting out Bastar range Inspector General of Police Himanshu Gupta, in the wake of the Maoist attack on Congress leaders.
Maoists have planned to unleash an intense Tactical Counter Offensive Campaign across the country starting from February and Sunday's ambush of 15 policemen in Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district may be just the first of a wave of devastating attacks, highly placed police officials in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh said.
Fierce gun battles took place on Monday between the Maoists and combined security forces at three places in West Midnapore district, a day after four Eastern Frontier Rifles jawans were gunned down by the extremists at Gidhni bazar in Kolkata.
The recoveries made from the gunned-down terrorist included two assault rifles along with two magazines and 234 rounds of bullets, five pistols with 10 magazines and 60 rounds, 15 hand grenades and 12 fuses for IEDs.
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.
A jawan was seriously injured in an ambush by ULFA (I) militants at Kanobari in Assam's Sibsagar district on Friday.
An Indian was also among those killed.
A prominent social activist was on Wednesday shot dead by militants in Sopore township of north Kashmir's Baramulla district, police said.
'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.
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.
Dr Sheikh Jalal, a leading cardiologist of Kashmir was seriously injured in a militant ambush that left his two police guards dead.
Five of the slain rebels were in uniform and had torches in their hands, police said.
The 10 policemen, who were ambushed by Maoists in a remote Bihar village on Monday, flouted standard guidelines issued by the district administration, government officials said on Tuesday."We had asked the police department not to participate in functions in remote villages and not accept any request to become the chief guest of any function there. It is one of the basic and standard warnings that we give to the policemen," Nawada District Magistrate Yogendra Bhakt said.
A Border Security Force jawan was killed in a Naxal attack in Chhattisgarh's Kanker district, the third strike by the ultras since Saturday in the state.
Naxals allegedly set on fire a conveyor belt of National Mineral Development Corporation in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district in the wee hours on Wednesday causing production disturbance to the tune of 40,000 tonnes.
Eight personnel of the 21 Para Regiment, which had undertaken a daring operation just inside Myanmar territory following the Manipur ambush, were among 67 for whom President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday approved Gallantry awards.
We have repeatedly asked India to refrain from accusations, says Pakistan's foreign office
Jawans belonging to the 170 Battalion of the force who were on duty were fired upon by the ultras and the resulting skirmish left at least seven personnel dead, they said.
The attack comes in less than 24 hours when militants of banned Hizbul Mujahideen ambushed a BSF convoy at neighbouring Goriwan area at Bijbehara killing three of its personnel.
Five personnel of the Border Roads Organisation, including a lieutenant colonel and an engineer, were gunned down by militants at Symbham top, the highest point on the Srinagar-Kishtwar Highway, in Jammu and Kashmir on Friday evening.
A fragile truce in the Swat valley of northwest Pakistan collapsed on Wednesday as troops targeted militant hideouts with artillery and helicopter gunships, killing at least 20 insurgents. The attacks on armed followers of pro-Taliban cleric Maulana Fazlullah in and around Matta were launched after the militants carried out overnight attacks on police posts near Kabal and Saidu Sharif, officials said.
Four Central Reserve Police Force personnel, including a sub inspector, were killed on Saturday in an ambush laid by the Maoists in Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh. "When a CRPF party was on a combing operation, the Maoists triggered land mines blasts and opened indiscriminate firing in Brahmabeda jungle of Narayanpur district, about 275 km from the state capital," CRPF sources told PTI. A sub inspector and three constables were killed on the spot, they said.
The motive of the crime is still unclear.
Though the identity of the insurgents was not known, police said it suspected that they belonged to the banned United National Liberation Front.
'Caste-based power politics made him think that he can get away with murder.'
