In the Chhattisgarh district of Bastar on Thursday, a minivan carrying ten police officers and their driver was blown up by an IED, according to officials.
The policemen claimed that they had just returned from an anti-Maoist operation that had been started as a result of intelligence reports.
The police officers were members of the District Reserve Guard (DRG), a specialised unit of the Chhattisgarh police made up primarily of indigenous tribal people who have received special training to fight Maoists.
In several successful operations against the insurgents in Bastar, a hotbed of left-wing extremism, the DRG has played a key role.
Following the attack, Union Home Minister Amit Shah called with Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel and pledged all assistance.
“The news of the martyrdom of our 10 DRG jawans and a driver as a result of an IED bomb targeting the DRG force, which had arrived for an anti-Naxal operation on knowledge of the presence of Maoist cadre under Aranpur police station area of Dantewada, is very painful. We sympathise with their families’ sorrow. “May their soul rest in peace,” tweeted Mr. Baghel.
Over the course of six decades, the Maoists, also known as Naxals, have engaged in an armed insurgency against the government that has claimed the lives of hundreds of people. They claim to be fighting for those who have been left out of the nation’s economic boom, the poorest.
A so-called “red corridor” has been established across central and eastern India since 1967 by the group deemed to pose the biggest threat to the nation’s internal security. They conduct their operations against the Indian government and army out of dense forests in a covert manner.
