Amid rows of coffins, a helmet crests on a rifle standing on its barrel in honour of the slain CRPF jawans at Air Force Station in New Delhi. (AFP)

New Delhi, April 7: If the security establishment was confounded yesterday, it sought to sow confusion today, apparently to ensure that the forces are not demoralised further.

The Union home ministry in the capital spent the day contradicting much of what it had said yesterday.

Elsewhere, India’s home minister and its air force chief contradicted each other on the possibility of deploying the air force against Maoists.

While the Indian Air Force chief raised humanitarian and tactical objections to the use of aerial offensive, P. Chidambaram found support from the Prime Minister who did not rule out using the air force against the Maoists.

In Ahmedabad, air force chief P.V. Naik said: “The military — the air force, the army and the navy — is not trained for limited lethality. The weapons that we have are meant for the enemy across the border. Therefore, I am not in favour of use of the air force in situations like the Naxalite problem.”

He added: “Unless we have 120 per cent intelligence that they (the Naxalites) are enemies, it is not fair to use the air force within our borders. The basic thing is Naxalites are our own citizens.”

But he made it clear the force would join the offensive if the government took such a decision.

The misgivings, coming a day after the Maoists killed 76 security personnel in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada, echo the sentiments expressed by army chief General V.K. Singh.

In Jagdalpur in Bastar, where the Union home minister went today to express solidarity with the CRPF, Chidambaram did not rule out use of the air force against the Maoists. “At present, there is no mandate to use the air force or any aircraft, but if necessary we will have to revisit the mandate and make some changes,” he said.

Later in the day, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh echoed Chidambaram. Asked whether the use of air power was being considered against the Maoists, Singh said: “All these options are kept open and continuously reviewed.... As of now, we have not taken any view in this direction.”

Home secretary G.K. Pillai had yesterday dismissed any plans to use the air force to combat the Maoists. However, the political leadership seems to have realised that categorically ruling out any option could be construed as a sign of weakness.

Version changes

(From top)Chidambaram in Raipur; air force chief PV Naik in Gandhinagar.

The home ministry also began tweaking the version its officials had put out yesterday. In an apparent effort to lift the morale of the forces, officials today changed much of what they had said yesterday about the Dantewada disaster.

Some officials had said yesterday that the CRPF company was “enticed” into the ambush by false information about a Naxalite training camp in the area. Today, the incident was no longer described as an intelligence failure.

In Raipur, Chidambaram claimed that the five platoons of the 62nd battalion had undertaken an “area domination exercise” — as opposed to having ventured out to bust the non-existent Naxalite training cell — and had established a base camp at Chintalnar in Dantewada district.

He, however, did not explain why the CRPF should have ventured 25km into the forest for area domination, when the standard operating procedure is to first dominate areas within 6km radius of a base camp.

“It is learnt that the deaths were caused largely by IEDs, bullet injuries and crude bombs and, possibly, grenade injuries. Only the post-mortem reports and a thorough inquiry, including de-briefing of the injured jawans, can fully establish the sequence of events and the facts,” said Chidambaram. Yesterday, home ministry officials had said 50 of the 76 jawans were killed when they stepped on pressure mines while taking cover behind trees and boulders.

The home minister accused the Maoists of thrusting a war on the country. “If this is a war — and I wish to say that we have never used that word — it is a war that has been thrust upon the state by those who do not have a legitimate right to carry weapons or to kill,” he said.