Maoist blast government office in Chhattisgarh

RAIPUR - Dozens of Maoist guerrillas Monday blew up a new tehsil (sub-district)office in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district, police said.

The rebels planted explosives in the building in Kuakonda area, some 450 km south of capital Raipur, and blasted it, an official at the police headquarters told IANS.

The building was completed only in June.

“It was a new building where district authorities were planning to open a tehsil office within a few weeks but now nearly 80 percent of it has been reduced to rubble,” the official said.

Maoists have stepped up attacks in the past three years on government buildings, mainly on schools, primary health centres, roads and bridges in forested areas of the state’s seven districts worst hit by Maoist violence — Bijapur, Dantewada, Narayanpur, Kanker, Bastar, Rajnandgaon and Surguja.