Maoist guerrillas on Saturday unsuccessfully tried to repeat the May 17 Chingawara tragedy in which they had blown up a passenger bus and killed 35 people by targeting another civilian bus in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district, reports reaching here said.
The bus, carrying about 70 passengers, managed to dodge the landmine blast triggered by the insurgents at a place around 40 km from the district headquarters town in Bijapur, averting a certain disaster.
“The blast took place barely a couple of minutes after the bus crossed the explosion site. The passengers panicked as the explosion occurred just a few metres from the speeding bus,” reports said.
“It was a narrow escape for all of us as the ear-splitting blast occurred not far away from us,” the passengers told security personnel at a nearby CRPF camp. No one was injured, reports added. However, the police was yet to confirm the incident. “We have received reports that Maoists triggered a landmine blast, targeting a passenger bus. But it is yet to be confirmed,” a senior district police officer told this newspaper.
Police sources said the explosion took place a few yards from the road embankment, allowing the bus to escape without being hit. The landmine was perhaps planted at the place a few weeks ago. “It seems the Maoists could not judge the location of the landmine and thus missed the target,” police sources said. Senior police officers rushed to the area to begin a probe into the incident. Nearly 25,000 sq. km of the total 40,000 sq. km forest area in Bastar region of Chhattisgarh have been heavily mined, official reports say.
The Bastar region, a Maoist stronghold, comprises the five districts of Bijapur, Dantewada, Bastar, Kanker and Narayanpur.