NUAPADA: It was a heartrending sight with bodies of nine Chhattisgarh police personnel, including that of Additional SP of Gariabandh Rajesh Pawar, lying scattered at Lingbhata in the district, 20 hours after they were ambushed by Maoists.The eight police personnel, besides Pawar, have been identified as Special Police Officer (SPO) Goura Jhankar and constables Dhaneswar Sinha, Homeswar, Deolal, Kishore Pandey, Yaddu, Krishna and Santosh Deor. One of the personnel is reportedly missing and his whereabouts is yet to be known.Reports said that the police team had come looking for some suspected Maoists and reached Sunabeda village in Sunabeda Wildlife Sanctuary at about 3 pm. It shares border with the neighbouring Chhattisgarh.All the police personnel were armed, including the SPO, originally from Thalipani village under Sunabeda gram panchayat, who was a Maoist till he surrendered and made an SPO. They were in plain clothes.The team left for Mainpuri, the hotbed of Maoists who have a separate division for the area, and from there headed for Sunabeda via Aamamola in Chhattisgarh and Datunama in the district, a distance of about 80 km.And it is along the Sunabeda- Datunama Road, they were ambushed.The vehicle with the front shield broken and bullet marks all around stand testimony to the barbaric attack.All that remained at the spot, located about 72 km from here, were blood soaked earthen road and mutilated bodies of the personnel. The CRPF and BSF men had a difficult time shifting the bodies to Chhattisgarh in a chopper on Tuesday.It seems the police personnel were besieged and fired upon from close range giving them little chance to retaliate. An unexploded grenade was also spotted nearby.It is believed that the Maoists had prior information of the police mobility and had laid the ambush. They decamped with the weapons being carried by them.Gariabandh SP Kamal Lochan Kashyap said that the empty shells indicate use of LMG guns in the carnage and confirmed that the 10 personnel were in the vehicle.Ironically, neither the district police and civil administration were at the spot nor there were any signs of coordination to tackle the Maoist menace.
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