A 40-year-old jawan of the Special Task Force (STF) was injured in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast planted by Maoists during an anti-Naxal operation in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district Monday morning. He was airlifted to Raipur for treatment. According to officials, the incident occurred around 9.45 am in a forest area of Bhopalpatnam block, where a joint operation by the STF and District Reserve Guard (DRG) was underway. The injured jawan has been identified as Dayaram Jamde, 40. When asked if the troops had metal detectors to locate IEDs, an officer confirmed they did. “But the jawan was walking in the middle of the group and accidentally stepped on the pressure IED, triggering it,” the officer said. The jawan sustained a leg fracture. Sources said the explosive was planted by the insurgents’ National Park Area Committee. IEDs are the most lethal weapon in the Maoist arsenal. So far this year, 12 security personnel — including Additional Superintendent of Police Akash Rao Girepunje — and four civilians have been killed in such blasts. Since 2024, security forces have detected and defused over a thousand IEDs across the region. On October 11, a CoBRA commando of the CRPF was injured in a similar explosion during an operation in Pujarikanker, Bijapur. Two days earlier, in Pedia village, an eight-year-old boy who had gone to graze cattle lost a leg after stepping on an IED. In the same village last July, a 10-year-old boy was killed in an IED blast. On October 3, a 22-year-old Maoist lost her ankle after she accidentally stepped on an IED planted by her own group in Madded, Bijapur.
