26 security personnel injured in Maoist blasts near Jamshedpur

JAMSHEDPUR/RANCHI: At least 26 CRPF and Jharkhand Armed Police (JAP) personnel were injured when Maoist rebels exploded a series of IEDs in Seraikela-Kharswan district early on Tuesday.
Officials said the rebels triggered altogether 15 IEDs while the security personnel were patrolling in a hilly forested area lying between Riding and Rar Sindri villages.The site of the attack is 60 km from here and falls under Kuchai police station. They further said the explosions were followed by indiscriminate firing by the Maoists. The security personnel also fired in retaliation and the gunfight between the two sides continued for at least an hour. A massive search operation has begun in the area.
The injured security personnel were flown to Ranchi in helicopters for treatment in a private hospital. Four jawans have been admitted to the critical care unit, of whom three are on ventilator support. Eleven others are out of danger but kept under observation. Moreover, 11 more were brought to the hospital in different batches but they were released after medical check-up.
“The injured arrived in batches and the first one reached hospital around 7:15 am. Four are in in critical care unit, out of which three are on ventilator support,” said Medica hospital’s PRO Anand Srivastava.
The critically injured jawans are identified as Patal Hembrom, Kuljeet Singh, Pradeep Sharma — all belonging to CRPF — and Sunil Kalita from the Jharkhand Jaguar.
“Those critically injured suffered splinter wounds and damages on eyes, face and legs,” said a senior police official at the hospital.
IG (operations) Ashis Batra said, “The Maoists triggered more than 15 blasts injuring the jawans. Four jawans are critical while four others sustained serious injuries. This apart, 11 other jawans were part of the overall team performing combing operations, too, sustained minor injuries but they were discharged from the hospital after preliminary examination.”
He added, “The landmines were planted to target the polling parties during the Lok Sabha elections but the extremist failed at that time.”
DGP D K Pandey who visited the injured jawans at Medica hospital in Ranchi, said, “Police are carrying out intensive search operation in the area following a tip-off that the Maoists have planted a large number of landmines.”
SDPO (Seraikela) Avinash Kumar said, “The explosions were of both low and high intensity. Most of the jawans were injured when they were hit by splinters of the rocks that got blown up during the blasts.”
Batra added that search operation was conducted to defuse landmines and hound out around 100 Maoists, who included two central committee members of the CPI (Maoist) — Prashant Bose and Anal — who are reportedly lurking in the area.
This is the third Maoist attack in the area sandwiched between West Singhbhum and Khunti districts since May 3 when the rebels blew up a BJP election office at Kharswan. On May 20, the Maoists exploded 22 low-intensity IEDs at the Hudanga dam site in Kharswan, injuring four personnel from Special Auxiliary Police (SAP) and district police.