A truck torched by Naxalites at Taimara, about 30km from Ranchi, on Tuesday. (Prashant Mitra)

Ranchi, Aug. 25: Maoist rage singed the state for the second consecutive day today as armed guerrillas blew up another mobile phone tower, torched five supply trucks — four on the arterial NH-33 — and injured four people in Latehar, Ranchi and Khunti districts.

The string of incidents spurred a security tizzy on NH-33, where vehicles were escorted by police jeeps for the day. All shops and business establishments in rebel strongholds remained closed on the second day of the 48-hour CPI(Maoist) bandh across five states.

Around 2am, a squad of some 30 rebels planted a bomb at the base of an Airtel tower, erected at a cost of Rs 80 lakh, at Lali village in the Manika police station area of Latehar district, about 150km from here. The impact of the blast, unlike the one that damaged a BSNL tower yesterday, was so severe that the tremor could be felt for yards and the sound was heard even from distant villages.

Sources in the police said that the Maoists also beat up the owner of the land on which the tower existed when the latter offered resistance. “The rebels branded Santosh Thakur and his son, Sanjay, police informers to justify the punishment,” a source said.

Though the incident took place before dawn, police could reach the spot only after 10am. By that time, several terrified families, it is learnt, abandoned their homes and took shelter in neighbouring areas fearing more strikes.

Almost around the same time, a second armed Maoist squad torched a truck at Manjhidih village between Tamar and Khunti, almost 70km from here.

Just around midnight yesterday, the rebels had set fire to four ration trucks at Taimara valley on NH-33, 30km from the capital.

Senior police superintendent (SSP), Ranchi, Praveen Kumar said that the trucks carrying vegetables and electrical equipment were attacked by a Maoist squad that included women.

“Two of the four trucks torched in Taimara were carrying chillies from Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, to Patna, Bihar. One truck was carrying tomatoes. It was coming from Bangalore and was bound for Ranchi. The fourth was transporting electrical equipment from the capital to Jamshedpur while the fifth machines from the steel city to a factory in Rourkela, Orissa,” the SSP said.

A constable and a police driver sustained bullet wounds soon after the incidents.

An anti-landmine vehicle carrying 10 jawans of the district armed police reached the spot from Bundu after the trucks were torched. The extremists opened fire on them from semi-automatic weapons. A bullet entered the vehicle through a joint and injured driver Satish Kumar Ohdar. Constable Sukra Oraon returned fire, but was also injured in the heavy firing from the other side.

“While Ohdar sustained injuries on the neck and ear, Oraon was hit on the hand. Both have been admitted to Tata Main Hospital in Jamshedpur, but are out of danger,” Kumar said.

Recounting the hour of horror, the driver of one of the supply trucks, K.K. Raj, told The Telegraph that the extremists did not harm him, but their presence was scary.

“They asked me and my helper, Ganesh, to get off the truck. As we scurried for cover, we saw the rebels pouring petrol on our truck, which was loaded with tomatoes, and setting it on fire. We dared not protest.”

The CPI(Maoist) had called a two-day bandh in five states — Jharkhand, Orissa, Bihar, Bengal and Chhattisgarh — to protest against the arrest of two of its top commanders.