Blast
[Representational image]Creative Commons

One policeman died while at least 11 others were injured in a Maoist attack in the Bhamragad taluk of Maharashtra on Wednesday, May 3. Bhamragad is in the Maoist-infested Gadchiroli district in eastern Maharashtra.

The attack comes barely 10 days after Naxals killed 25 jawans of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in the Sukma district of Chhattisgarh. The attack has since been described as "cold-blooded murded" by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh. Help has also poured in from all quarters, like cricketer Gautam Gambhir pitching in for the education expenses of the martyrs' wards. 

Even the CRPF has got a new director general in the form of RR Bhatnagar since the attack, and the Bhamragad attack will add to the headaches of both him and other security agencies. This will especially be the case because Bhamragad is near the Maharashtra-Chhattisgarh border, and Maoists often escape from to another state when the heat from security forces get too much in one state. 

The target of Wednesday's attack — a landmine blast — was a patrol party of commandos belonging to the C-60 Force, which was raised by former Maharashtra anti-terrorist squad chief KP Raghuvanshi specifically to tackle the Maoist menace in the state. The attack took place in Bhamragad, when the patrol party was crossing the area. 

Some of the commandos injured in the ambush have been sent to local hospitals, while those whose injuries were more serious were airlifted to Nagpur, the second capital of Maharashtra. Meanwhile, additional forces rushed to the spot and carried out a comprehensive combing operation in the area to flush out any Naxal who might have remained behind or were too injured to move.

Earlier on Wednesday, a CRPF jawan and two policemen had been injured in Maoist firing in the Pomke Kothi area, once again in Bhamragad. The Maoists had fled the scene when the security personnel fired back at them.