Maoists set on fire 6 iron ore trucks in Chhattisgarh (Second Lead)

RAIPUR - Around 60 armed Maoists set on fire at least six trucks loaded with iron ore for Essar Steel in Chhattisgarh’s violence-hit Dantewada district early Saturday, police said.

“Maoists came out of forests around midnight and stopped six trucks between Bhansi and Bacheli and set them on fire,” Dantewada Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) S.R.P. Kalluri told IANS on phone from Dantewada town, headquarters of the district.

The attack site is located some 420 km south of capital Raipur and within two km from Bacheli, a major iron ore mining facility of India’s top iron ore producer in public sector, NMDC Ltd.

“The trucks that were burnt belonged to private contractors. The trucks were carrying iron ore for Essar Steel. The road was opened for vehicular traffic around 6 a.m.,” Kalluri said.

“The overnight act of Maoists was a planned move to terrorise people in Bastar ahead of the Independence Day celebrations.”

The guerrillas have called for boycott of Sunday’s Independence Day function. They felled trees on the hilly road to prevent security forces from reaching the site where the trucks were burnt.

Reports coming from the interiors of the state’s 40,000 sq km Bastar region, a nerve centre of Maoist militancy since late 1980s, say Maoists have put heavy wooden logs on jungle roads to block traffic.

Rebels have thrown leaflets and pamphlets on National Highway 221 in Dantewada district, asking people to stay away from Independence Day functions. The Chhattisgarh government has stepped up security in and around government buildings in Maoist-hit 13 districts.

A home department official said of the 18 districts, 13 are hit by Maoist menace since late 1980s. The toll in Maoist violence has exceeded 2,000 since the state came into existence in November 2000, and nearly half the casualties are among security forces.

In the past three years between July 2007 and July 2010, the state has witnessed 1,948 attacks by Maoists, in which 418 civilians and 435 policemen, including 75 Special Police Officers (SPOs), were killed.