This story is from March 13, 2019

Raipur: Maoists free cop, teacher after ambush plan fails

In a major development, the allegedly abducted police sub-inspector and teacher in Bastar's Dantewada district have returned safely from clutches of Maoists on Tuesday morning
Raipur: Maoists free cop, teacher after ambush plan fails
Representative image
RAIPUR: In a major development, the allegedly abducted police sub-inspector and teacher in Bastar's Dantewada district have returned safely from clutches of Maoists on Tuesday morning. The duo told police that they were taken by ultras to forests of Burgum on foot by blind-folding them on Sunday and were questioned throughout the night. Maoists threatened them of maintaining distance from police and asked SI to quit the force or face dire consequences.
Talking to TOI, Dantewada Superintendent of Police Abhishek Pallava said that rumour of SI being killed by Maoists was spread by ultras among local reporters in order to ambush security forces when they would enter forests in search of the body and the teacher.

"It is part of Maoists' tactics that they target security personnel through an ambush or plant IEDs during such rescue operations and trigger a major attack, to mark their presence during elections," SP said.
He elaborated that the teacher Jaisingh Kuretti had gone to CRPF camp of battalion 111th at Sameli village to meet sub-inspector Lalit Kashyap on Sunday to collect a summons sent on his name by Lok Adalat.
Meanwhile, Kashyap who is reportedly chronic alcoholic, befriended with Kuretti and planned out for consuming alcohol at a roadside dhaba in the outskirts.
SP added that Kuretti then offered SI to go to school and drink comfortably at Jabeli village. The local Maoist sympathizers suspecting foul on presence of a stranger with teacher, picked the duo and later took them 15 kilometers inside deep forest to present them before senior cadres, Pallava said.

The SI and teacher were questioned till next noon about the strategies of police, sources of information gathering, number of jawans at camp and several other inputs on tactics. By evening the ultras spread this false information among local media persons that the SI has been hacked to death during jan adalat and teacher was still with Maoists.
"In stead of rushing on the unconfirmed reports of SI's death and sending the police party right away, we strategized to leave early morning after road sanitization. We approached the local villagers who work as militia members for Maoists, police detained them to collect details and utilized them as mediators to get back the kidnapped duo. they were told, if they failed to do so, they would be arrested for assisting rebels," SP Pallava said.
Maoists released SI Kashyap and teacher Kuretti and both returned to camp around 8 am on Tuesday. They identified the senior cadres' on pictures who questioned them as Vinod, secretary of Makangir area committee, Deva, area committee military in-charge and Gundadhur, local commander of Malangir area committee.
SP said now that the security related information has been divulged to Maoists, there were changes being made in strategies, security was being beefed up and reshuffled and tactics were being undone for new planning.
Pallava said that SI Kashyap was suspended with immediate effect and a departmental enquiry was ordered against him on the grounds for leaving the camp without informing anyone, consuming alcohol at hostile areas, switching off his cell phone and also for giving unauthorized leaves to his subordinates in camp. SP said that there was complaint made against teacher also at the school and district education officer for consuming alcohol on school premises.
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About the Author
Rashmi Drolia

Rashmi is a Special Correspondent with The Times of India in Chhattisgarh. She covers Politics, Left Wing Extremism, Crime and Human Rights among other areas of news value.

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