To deflect mounting pressures from the Centre to fix responsibility on two Indian Police Service (IPS) cadre officers, posted in Dantewada, for the “command failure” that had led to April 6 massacre of 76 security personnel by the Maoists at Chintalnar, the Chhattisgarh chief minister, Mr Raman Singh, on Tuesday directed state director general of police (DGP), Mr Vishwa Ranjan, to submit a report on the matter.
Mr Singh’s decision to leave it to the DGP to decide the fate of Dantewada superintendent of police (SP) Amresh Mishra and inspector general of police (IGP), Bastar region, T.J. Longkumar, is viewed here as a mere ploy to bail out these officers in the wake of Union home ministry turning heat on the government to take action against them.
This is also seen as a move by the chief minister to pre-empt any bid by Union home minister P. Chidambaram, who is scheduled to visit the state capital on Wednesday, to put pressure on him to shunt out these officers, as per the recommendations of the E.N. Rammohan committee, which probed the incident.
The chief minister, echoing views of the top brass of state police, had earlier expressed his reluctance to honour the Centre’s directive in this regard. He was of the opinion that any such action would lower the morale of the state police, which is currently fighting against the Maoist insurgents with their back to the wall. The state police also found loopholes in the Rammohan committee report and dismissed all charges leveled against the two Dantewada police officers by it. Senior police officers went to the media strongly defending their colleagues.
“The two police officers had nothing to do with the April 6 tragic incident of mass killing of CRPF jawans by the rebels. The anti-Maoist operations on that day was planned and executed by the Central paramilitary force,” they said.
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CRPF finds tiffin bombs
Age Correspondent
Raipur
June 1: A patrolling party of CRPF jawans on Tuesday recovered a “tiffin (a metal container used to carry breakfast) bomb”, loaded with 10 kg explosives at Bijapur ghat, a narrow mountainous road passing through thick forests, close to district headquarters town in Bijapur in Chhattisgarh, police said.
The security personnel detected the bomb while clearing the road of trees felled by the Maoists.