Maoists were gathering nearby. There was an apprehension. And it took shape. The district police officials sat duck on the intel report poured in from the state intelligence department on Thursday evening.
Despite repetitive denials from state DGP Bhupinder Singh that there were no “specific inputs” before this train attack, highly places sources in the state home department claimed just the opposite. The intel that reached the state police on Thursday evening had categorically mentioned about a group of 40-odd Maoists who were gathering near Inraboni village a few kilometres off Jhargram town.
“These people were gathering from various parts and were carrying spades. Very unusual and very significant,” claimed the report. It was only hours later that the security forces could realise what these spades were meant for. It is suspected that these spades were used by the Maoists and the Maoist backed tribal body PCPA members to dismantle parts of the railway track near Sardiha on Thursday night. On being contacted state DGP said, “The Maoists have always been targeting government and public property. This is not new. But at the same time, there was no specific alert about the Maoists planning to attack a train.”
However, insiders revealed that on Thursday, based on specific information, two teams of the security forces had raided parts of Lalgarh and Jhargram. “The main idea was to cordon off both the banks of river Kangshaboti. One of the teams was on the Lalgarh side while the other was on Jhargram side,” said a source.
A Maoist squad was believed to have been camping on either side of the river. As the team on the Lalgarh side came out empty-handed, the group that was carrying out the search operation towards Jhargram, confronted the Maoists. A heavy gunbattle followed. The Maoists retaliated with burst firing.
However, the security forces lost track of the armed rebels once they entered Manickpara, a village, two kilometres from the Jhargram town.
The intelligence report that reached the district police on Thursday night alerted that this same group of Maoists who slipped out of the police grip near Manickpara, were re-gathering and collecting spades from the nearby villages.
It is suspected that this same group involves a number of Maoists who had earlier been charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) but were bailed out from the Midnapore jail in last week of April after the charges were dropped against them.