11 CRPF jawans killed in Dantewada

     Dantewada, June 21, 2009: A total of 11 CRPF jawans were killed and nine security forces injured after the Maoists blown up 1 truck of the forces in Dantewada district yesterday late evening, CRPF officials said today.

     However, in retaliatory firing, seven naxalites were killed, they said.

     The Maoists had burnt five vehicles engaged in road construction work under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana between Gadamras to Kohakawada and a joint police party of CRPF and District Forces had gone to the spot via Sukma in three vehicles for that purpose.

     When the forces were returning back, the Maoists targetted the third vehicle, a ten-wheeled truck, of the convoy and blown up that triggering a powerful land mine blast, police said.

     The truck was blown up and turned turtle, and came under indiscriminate firing from the Maoists. The security forces also gave a befitting match to the naxal fire.

     In that incident a total of eleven CRPF jawans, of which five are from Jammu and Kashmir, two from Bihar and one each from Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Maharashtra, were killed and nine injured.

     In the retaliatory action the forces shot dead seven naxalites, CRPF officials said.

     In that incident the truck driver had a providential escape and the Maoists had failed to loot any of the weapons of the Para-Military Forces, they said.

      Five of the injured forces had been sent to Raipur with severe burnt and bullet injuries and two of them are stated to be in serious conditions, doctors said.