RAIPUR — Eight paramilitary personnel were killed and seven seriously injured overnight when Maoist rebels raided the explosives unit of the state-owned National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) in Chhattisgarh and took away a huge cache of arms and ammunition, police said yesterday.Around 200 rebels of the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) attacked the NMDC unit located in Hiroli village in Dantewada district at around 8pm on Thursday and started firing at personnel of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF). "The rebels have taken away a huge cache of explosives from the explosives unit, specially detonators, self-loading rifles, 2,100 rounds of bullets and wireless sets," Additional Director General of Police S.K. Paswan said.
| That sounds fairly serious. |
The injured CISF personnel have been taken to a hospital at Bachelli in Dantewada. The Maoists shot dead three civilians Thursday night in two separate attacks in a remote village of Cherakdodi in the same district accusing them of being in league with police.
Chhattisgarh Governor K.M. Seth met Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil on Thursday in Delhi and sought two CRPF battalions and a Nagaland Armed Police battalion for the state. The governor told Patil that the anti-Maoist movement, locally called salwa judum launched by tribes people in Bastar, needed to be intensified.