Alok Mishra
Patna: Taking strong exception to the killing of 10 CRPF jawans including three from Bihar on Aurangabad-Gaya border in an encounter with the naxals on Monday, the state police hedquarters would carry out an internal probe into the lapses that led to the incident. Four naxalites were also killed in the encounter.
Briefing mediapersons here on Tuesday, ADG (Hq) Sunil Kumar admitted that there had been lapses in the entire excercise. He said that an internal inquiry would be carried out into it. ” We would try to rectify the loopholes, if any,” he pointed out adding that Bihar CM Nitish Kumar has also condemned the cowardice act of the naxalites. Kumar said that the dependents of the jawans would get Rs25 lakh each including Rs. 5 lakh announced by the state government. He said that an alert has been sounded on Bihar-Jharkhand border following the incident and a massive manhunt has been launched there to nab the naxals.
The ADG admitted that members of the banned outfit CPI (Maoist) were involved in the encounter as the other splinter groups including TPC do not have adequate manpower and firing equipments. He said that three sophisticated weapons had been recovered from the encounter spot. Efforts were on to ascertain the identities of the naxalsnaxal prt killed in the encounter.
Even IG (Operations), Jharkhand, M S Bhatia said that some of the naxals, having roots here, were also part of the naxal sqaud in Aurangabad. He said that an alert has been sounded across Jharkhand and SPs of the naxals affected distrcits have been directed to carry out anti-naxal operations in their respectives areas.
Even Union Home minister Rajnath Singh called Bihar CM Nitish Kumar and took stock of the situation after the encounter.
The jawans, who fell to the naxals’ bullets, have been identified as Ramesh Kumar, Anil Kumar, Upendra Singh, Dipak Ghosh, Harendra Panwar, Ravi Kumar, Sinod Kumar, Diwakar Kumar, Manoj Kumar and Palas Mandal. Three injured CRPF jawans have been admitted to a private clinic in Patliputra Colony.