Maoists kill two cops in Chhattisgarh attack

RAIPUR - Maoist guerrillas shot dead two policemen in a pre-dawn attack near a police station in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district Monday, police said.

The attack was carried out close to the Bhejji police station, over 500 km south of capital Raipur.

“The two policemen of the District Force (DF) were shot dead when they stepped outside the police station,” Senior Superintendent of Police (Dantewada) S.R.P. Kalluri told IANS over phone.

He said reinforcements were rushed to the site to thwart more possible attacks as dozens of armed Maoists were spotted at a thickly forested area near the police station.

Inspector General of Police (Bastar range) T.J. Longkumer said: “The policemen were killed within 50 to 100 metres from the police station when bullets of Maoists hit them.”

He rejected reports that police had killed several Maoists in retaliatory firing.

An official at the police headquarters here said: “There is a CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) battalion based close to the Bhejji police station besides a sufficient number of state police force at the police station that has been under attack frequently in recent years.”

Dantewada district forms a roughly 40,000 sq km impoverished tribal stronghold in the Bastar region along with Bijapur, Bastar, Narayanpur and Kanker districts. The mineral rich Bastar region is considered the nerve centre of Maoist militancy in India.

The rebels had massacred 76 cops in Dantewada district in April this year in one of their biggest strikes since they began their armed struggle from a West Bengal village in 1967.