On Wednesday, ten police officers and a driver were killed in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district, in the worst attack on security forces in the Maoist-insurgency-ravaged central Indian state since April 2021.
According to police, an improvised explosive device (IED) was used to blow up their vehicle as they were returning from an anti-Maoist operation. According to the images, the blast left a crater at the scene of the attack.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah informed Chattishgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel of the attack and promised the state government all possible assistance.
“I am outraged by the cowardly attack on Chhattisgarh police in Dantewada. I spoke with Chhattisgarh’s Chief Minister and assured him of my full support for the state government. “My heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families of the martyred Jawans,” he tweeted.
Baghel condemned the attack in a tweet, saying the fight against Maoists is nearing its end and that the Left-wing insurgents would not be spared. He added that the police officers were attacked when they arrived for an operation based on a tip-off about the presence of Maoists at Dantewada’s Aranpur police station.
The attack on Wednesday was the deadliest in Chhattisgarh since April 2021, when 22 police and paramilitary personnel were killed and at least two dozen others were injured in a gunfight with Maoists in the Bastar region.
The death toll for security forces fighting Maoists was the highest since 2017 when 25 jawans were killed in an attack. In March 2020, seventeen members of a commando patrol were killed in an attack in Chhattisgarh.
Maoists blocked a 20-car convoy of Congress leaders in a dense forest in Chhattisgarh in 2013, before detonating a landmine and firing on the vehicles. The attack killed former Union Minister Vidya Charan Shukla and 18 others.
The latest attack in Dantewada comes months after seven security personnel, including an army jawan, were killed in suspected Maoist attacks across Chhattisgarh in a single week in February.
The attacks came as the Union government claimed a decrease in Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) violence. In January, Shah stated that they intend to rid the country of Maoism before the 2024 general elections.
Nityanand Rai, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs, told Parliament in December that incidents of LWE violence had decreased by 77% from a high of 2213 in 2010 to 509 in 2021.
In February, Shah presided over a meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee on LWE and attributed the decrease in Maoist-related incidents to a three-pronged strategy. He stated that the number of civilian and security personnel killed in LWE incidents has decreased from 1,005 in 2010 to 98 in 2022, while the number of districts affected has decreased from 90 to 45.
