Gulf between the CRPF and the Chhattisgarh police on Saturday widened further with the former calling state director-general of police (DGP) Vishwa Ranjan’s claim of sharing intelligence on Maoists’ presence at Dhorai, where the ultras ambushed a contingent of the Central paramilitary force on June 29 killing 27 of them, a “bluff”.
“We had received no specific intelligence inputs from the Chhattisgarh police on possible Maoist ambush on our contingent on June 29. In fact, the state police had no such specific intelligence with them,” CRPF inspector-general of police (IGP) R.K.Dua told reporters here.
“They (Chhattisgarh police) might have shared a generalised intelligence input in this regard with us. We had never received any hard intelligence on Maoists’ presence in the area from the state police,” he said, adding, “We also get such generalised intelligence inputs from the Intelligence Bureau.”
He also dismissed Mr Ranjan’s claim that the CRPF contingent was undertaking logistic movement operations when they were suddenly attacked by the left-wing ultras, saying, his personnel were carrying out an anti-Maoist operations.
Mr Ranjan, however, told this newspaper, “Intelligence was shared about presence of Naxals in the area. In fact, it was already planned to lay ambush to trap the Naxals on the night of June 29-30. However, the operation was abandoned after the CRPF personnel got ambushed during routine logistic movement.”
Apparently peeved at alleged ridiculing of his force by Mr Ranjan for not acting on specific intelligence input leading to the June 29 tragedy, a senior CRPF officer said, “It pains us because there are several things that cannot be said publicly. It should have been discussed only in closed-door meeting.”
Relations between the two forces soured after the CRPF suffered a big reverse in Dantewada district.