Dressed as commoners, Naxals deal a bloody blow

If in Jehanabad, the Naxals managed to free many of their imprisoned comrades, at Jhajha, they walked away with a hefty booty of arms and ammunition — 36 rifles, six SLRs, two carbines and 1,867 cartridges.

“The Naxals were dressed like commoners, used mostly small firearms and had a large number of women at the forefront, which makes it very difficult for the police to open fire,” said IG (Operations) S K Bhardwaj, who is supervising the combing operations. Bhardwaj added that they had arrested two persons involved in the attack, including one woman, and got vital clues.

Recounting the attack that began at around 6 pm, the officer-in-charge of the Government Railway Police (GRP) Station, Sati Kumar Verma, who was also injured, said: “The platform was crowded as a passenger train had just arrived. After my evening stroll, I was standing outside the police station when a person from the crowd suddenly attacked my head with a spade. I started bleeding profusely and even before I could realise what had happened, 20-30 men and women had entered the police station.”

Only four-five jawans were present at the station at the time. However, they had plenty of arms and ammunition as train escort parties had returned, submitted their weapons and were relaxing in the barracks, away from the platform. The Naxals fired in the air and at GRP jawans who tried to stop them from looting the arms.

Even as the core group carted away the weapons, other members took strategic positions in and outside the station. Landmines were laid just outside to stop any police reinforcements. Another group of Naxals took control of the Railway Protection Force (RPF) Station, which had only three unarmed jawans. The fourth group took charge of the office that mans movement of trains. “They did not kill any of our unarmed jawans but damaged the office,” said RPF Station in-charge Arup Kumar.

Police claims apart, Sunday’s attack showed how badly prepared they were to face any such attack.