The CPI (Maoist) have launched an “intense tactical counter offensive campaign” (TCOC) and Naxal hotbeds of Gadchiroli, Dantewada, Abhujmad and other Naxal dominated zones — particularly border districts of Chattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Maharashtra — are high on the target of the banned outfit.
The CRPF is viewing the latest Naxal attack killing a dozen CRPF personnel as part of the outfit’s counter-offensive campaign. The Union home ministry had last week issued an alert to all nine Left-wing extremism affected states warning of the Maoists’ counter-offensive.
Top security officials said on Tuesday that Gadchiroli in Maharashtra has fast become the killing fields for the Maoists. Landmines have been planted on state highways in vast areas in Gadchiroli resulting in the fresh killings of CRPF personnel, they said. “The state highway on which the CRPF team was travelling is a tarred road but the Maoists had planted a landmine,” a senior CRPF official said. These officials were carrying utensils, clothes and other utility items for villagers in trucks under the civic action undertaken in the area. The bus ferrying the security personnel, however, was blown up in the landmine blast, the official said.