Six policemen and two civilians were killed in a landmine blast triggered by the Maoists in Bihar’s Gaya district on Friday noon in an attack said to be the rebels’ retaliation against the vigorous anti-Maoist propaganda exercises run by the police force.
A powerful blast caused by an improvised explosive devices (IED) hidden under an unpaved road blew up the police patrol vehicle and instantly killed all the eight people in it, said Gaya superintendent of police Akhtar Hussain.
The dead included four Bihar Military Police (BMP) constables, one assistant sub-inspector (ASI) and a special police officer (SPO), who is also described by some sources as a police informer.
The dead civilian was identified as a relative of the local sarpanch.
The incident is coming just four months after a similar blast occurred in the same district which caused the death of six CRPF jawans. It renewed fear among both the police personnel and local villagers. The landmine blast near Barha village under Dumaria police station on October 12, 2012 was blamed on the Maoists. Friday’s blast occurred on an unpaved dirt road at Roshanganj in Gaya’s Maoist-affected Sherghati sub-division close to the Bihar-Jharkhand border. The IED bomb hidden under a culvert went off when the vehicle came on it, said sources. The police team was returning to Roshanganj police station from Balasot.