Maoists kill 3 Greyhounds commandos of Telangana in landmine blast: Police

The deceased were identified as V Sridhar, N Pavan Kalyan and T Sandeep. The injured RSI Ch Ranadhir is undergoing treatment at a hospital in Hyderabad, sources said.

Senior police officers said the commandos were struck when they were doing a routine area domination exercise. “The armed cadres of banned CPI (Maoist) planted IEDs in the forest areas under Venkatapuram, Wazeedu and Perur Police Station limits of Mulugu district. The Maoists had given a statement recently that they had planted bombs in the area and warned Adivasis and others not to move in the area. To unearth the IEDs planted by Maoists, a patrol team comprising Mulugu police and Greyhounds units started for searching the area on the night of May 7 to check the area and diffuse landmines and bombs from the morning of May 8,” Telangana DGP Dr Jitender said in a press statement.

The explosion occurred near the Veerabhadravaram-Tadapala hillocks of Wazeedu-Perur forest zone in Mulugu district. Mulugu and its adjacent Bhadradri Kothagudem district are considered Maoist-affected regions.

According to a police source, the mines were triggered when the commandos were doing a sweep of the landmines. “One of the mines was triggered by Maoists resulting in the fatalities. The Maoists also opened fire at the commandos after the mine was triggered,” a police source said.

“…a group of 35-40 banned CPI (Maoist) extremists including women armed with deadly weapons waiting in ambush, triggered landmines from a distance followed by heavy gunfire targeting the patrol and search party. The firing by armed Maoists continued indiscriminately with an intention to kill the police party. The Maoists stopped firing and ran away when the police party fired back in self-defense,” the DGP’s statement .

While state police officers said that the fatality did not occur during any intended offensive operation, Chhattisgarh Police have been hunting down Maoists in the Karregutta hillock at the state border for the past three weeks. A Telangana Police officer said that the state had not joined hands with the Chhattisgarh operation, which has resulted in many Maoist fatalities.

“There is no joint operation. The fatalities have occurred during routine domination exercise,” a senior official in the Telangana Police said. Telangana’s state policy has been to encourage Maoists to surrender. So far, close to 300 such surrenders have been recorded in the recent past from Mulugu alone, as the district borders Chhattisgarh. Meanwhile, the DGP’s statement read, “Efforts are on to nab the accused Maoist cadre”.

The deaths have occurred at a time when the senior leaders of Telangana’s ruling Congress party have been urging the Centre to hold “peace talks” with the Maoists. A team of civil society organisations and individuals had met Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy to “request the Centre to stop Operation Kagar”. Reddy had assured that he will bring the request to the attention of Congress’ national leadership. “A decision will be taken after consultations with the Congress High Command,” Reddy had stated.

The Greyhounds are an elite anti-Naxal force set up in 1989 by IPS officer K S Vyas to combat growing threat of Maoists in undivided Andhra Pradesh. They are known to have neutralised several operations of the Maoists ever since they were formed. The biggest Maoist offensive against the Greyhounds was in 2008 when they were ambushed to kill 37 personnel at the Balimela reservoir at the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha border.