Patna/Ranchi, Jan. 5: Munger superintendent of police K.C. Surendra Babu and five policemen were killed today in a landmine explosion triggered by suspected Naxalites.
Babu, the second IPS officer, to have fallen to the Naxalites after Ajay Kumar, the then SP of Lohardaga, now in Jharkhand, was returning after conducting joint raids in the adjoining Jamui district, when the explosion blew up his vehicle around 5 pm on Wednesday. The incident took place in the Bhimbandh area.
Earlier around 1 pm, Naxalites triggered another Claymore landmine explosion in Latehar (Jharkhand), in which two CRPF jawans and a driver were injured.
The driver, who was alone in the jeep, is stated to be serious. Other policemen escaped with relatively minor injuries because they were on foot. The jeep, however, was destroyed completely.
On Monday this week, police had recovered 16 landmines, each weighing 22 kg, in Chatra district of Jharkhand.
According to the Latehar superintendent of police, Manvinder Bhatia, a gun-battle followed and the police fired 38 rounds before hostilities ceased. There are, however, no report of any casualty from the other side, he conceded. A combing operation, he claimed, had been undertaken to detect more landmines suspected to have been planted in the area.
The Munger SP had set out on a joint patrol with Jamui police following yesterday?s incident at Kajra railway station in Lakhisarai district, in which two GRP personnel were injured and their weapons looted by a group of CPI(Maoist) activists.
Bihar home secretary Girish Shankar confirmed six deaths in the landmine blasts in Jamui bordering Jharkhand. The explosions came close on the heels of a high-level meeting on Tuesday between Bihar and Jharkhand police in Ranchi. Officials from the intelligence agencies had also attended the meeting and warned of renewed Naxalite strikes in the two states before the Assembly election scheduled for next month.
There has been a spurt in Naxalite violence after last year?s merger of the two factions of Naxalite outfits ? the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) and the People?s War (PW) ? which came together to form the Communist Party of India (Maoist).
While the Naxalites had largely shifted their activities to Jharkhand over the past few years, their stand in Bihar hardened after the state government banned a rally in Patna last month to hail the unification of the two factions. The Bihar strongman and railway minister Laloo Prasad Yadav was forced to explain that the rally had been banned by the central and not the state government, an explanation which failed to cut much ice with Naxalites who have pointedly began targeting railway property.
The explosions have set alarm bells ringing and senior government officials met late on Wednesday to review the situation.
