9 cops die in Orissa attack,officials see shades of Lalgarh

Like in Lalgarh,they have tapped into the latent anger over alleged taking over of land by non-tribals. For the past fortnight,the tribals led by the Sangh have been forcibly occupying farmlands. For the last two days,they have also blocked all roads in Koraput leading to Narayanpatna and from Parvatipuram in Andhra Pradesh felling huge trees.

According to the CRPF officer,the Narayanpatna incident was the first successful replication of the Lalgarh experiment in Orissa. “I have been intimating the Orissa Police for the past six months,but they chose not to take any action,” he said,adding that he had been seeking deployment of at least two battalions of CRPF. This was the second big Maoist attack in Koraput in the past fortnight,after police stations of Boipariguda and Machhkund and a police outpost in Ramgiri were blown up.

The Special Security Force jawans who died were all former Armymen. The force had been set up by Orissa last year with ex-Armymen to fight Maoists. At 10 am in Palur,about 13 km from Laxmipur,the jawans found a huge tree blocking the road. They got down to clear the road when the landmines went off. “The blasts were so powerful that the jeep was flung almost 40 feet up,” said DIG (South-Western Range) Sanjib Panda. A company of the CRPF that reached the site was fired at by the Maoists for over an hour. A live landmine was recovered.

The deceased policemen have been identified as N D Tiwari,Birabhadra Singh,Om Narayan Sharma,N K B Nayak,Kanhaiya Singh,Mahiprasad Singh,Sulaiman Hiro,Abinash Kujur and driver Sukanta Sahu.

The Maoists have long eyed Narayanpatna block as it is a key stopover in the so-called Red Corridor connecting Andhra and Orissa.