The CRPF bravehearts fought till the last drop of their blood.
It was the valour of 25 dying Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawans that managed to save the lives of 40 civilians who had come to construct the crucial road bearing strategic importance in the Maoist stronghold of Sukma district in Chhattisgarh.
The first party of 26 CRPF jawans had broken up for lunch when more than 300 fully-armed Maoists suddenly ambushed them spraying bullets and grenades from three sides.
The lead party, consisting of 36 jawans, faced the assault after they ventured out from Burkapal providing protection to the 5.5-km long road construction work connecting Maoist stronghold Chitagufa in Sukma district.
“The assault lasted for around two hours which is like ages in war conditions. To the credit of our martyred jawans, they did their best to retaliate which gave time to the follow up parties to launch a counter-offensive and minimise the damage, otherwise the next target would have been the civilians involved in road construction,” a senior CRPF official said.
The following batches of jawans were quick to get in position, thus not only forcing the marauding Maoists to retreat but also save the lives of 40 odd civilians of the road construction party consisting of workers, engineers and contractors.
CRPF sources said that some of the jawans had just finished their lunch while some others were still having lunch and perhaps were not in a ready combat mode when the attack took place around 12:30 pm. The troops came under lethal fire of under-barrel grenade launchers (UBGL) that Maoists lobbed at them in quick succession with accuracy to inflict fatal casualties.
A top Union home ministry official said the attack seems to a desperate attempt of the Maoist to save their last bastion in Chhattisgarh.
“The inputs amply indicate that the Maoists used their full available strength in this attack. This does not absolve us of our weaknesses that will reflect in the detailed inquiry report of the incident,” said the official.
Counter-insurgency expert, K Durga Prasad, who recently retired as the DGP of CRPF, refuted allegations of intelligence failure and blamed the tardy process of road construction by state agencies for CRPF losses.
“Most CRPF losses have happened not during operations but giving protection to road construction. This particular road construction is happening for the last three years and CRPF is sending men on a daily basis which gives a certain amount of predictability to the Maoists. The issue is how many years we will take to lay a road, why can’t we complete it in six months on a mission mode,” said Durga Prasad.
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