An injured BSF jawan in Raipur. (AFP)

Raipur, Nov. 14: Maoists riddled an air force Mi-8 helicopter with machinegun fire, killing the flight engineer and providing a bloody start to the two-phase Chhattisgarh polls that also saw a CRPF constable shot dead.

The chopper was just taking off from Pedia in Bijapur around 3pm, ferrying electronic voting machines (EVMs) to the Jagdalpur strong-room 160km away, when guerrillas hiding near the helipad began shooting, sources said.

Some 17 bullets hit the helicopter, of which one pierced the windshield and killed Sergeant Mustafa Ali.

“The rotor blade, engine and fuselage were hit but the pilot, Wg Cdr T.K. Chaudhary, managed to fly the machine safely to Jagdalpur, saving the lives of the other passengers,” a district official and eyewitness said.

Some reports said that three already injured BSF jawans, being flown to hospital on the chopper, received further bullet wounds and were now critical at the district hospital in Jagdalpur. State police and the CRPF, however, denied that the Mi-8 was carrying any BSF men.

Maoists attacked polling stations and looted EVMs, disrupting voting in 21 booths, where re-polling will be held, state chief electoral officer Alok Shukla said.

Guerrillas killed a CRPF constable and injured four security personnel. Officers counted 25 gunfights with the rebels, who tried to raid three police camps.

The 12 seats in Maoist-affected Bastar region, where most of the attacks including the one on the chopper took place, saw poor turnout. An official said that in some polling stations, the turnout was “worse than in Kashmir” during the height of insurgency and poll boycotts in the Valley.

Brisk polling in many of the other 27 seats, however, raised the overall turnout to 55-60 per cent, a figure given by the Election Commission. Fifty-one constituencies vote in the second and last phase on November 20.

Some 38 Mi-8 helicopters were used today to bring back EVMs and poll officials from the most sensitive booths.

Maoists have targeted helicopters at least five times in the past one year, one attack causing a RanAir chopper, chartered by the Chhattisgarh government, to crash in Andhra Pradesh three months ago. Its wreckage was found yesterday. Chhattisgarh police chief Vishwa Ranjan’s helicopter was attacked four times and hit once.

Additional director-general of police Girdhari Nayak, however, found the polling “mostly peaceful”. He said: “In 2003, re-polling was ordered in 73 booths, but this time only in 21.” He added that six people were killed then, compared with two today.