Even as Union Home Secretary G K Pillai arrived in Chhattisgarh on Sunday night to review the security situation in the wake of frequent Naxal attacks in Bastar,Maoists in separate incidents on Sunday blew up a culvert on National Highway 221 that connects Jagdalpur and Hyderabad and killed three people by slitting their throats and accusing them of being police informers in Bijapur district. Pillai is scheduled to meet state governor Shekhar Dutt,Chief Minister Raman Singh and also hold discussion with senior civil and police officials,particularly regarding the security situation and logical deployment of Para-military forces in the Naxalite areas to make the ongoing anti-Naxalite operations more effective. Indications are that the Union Home Secretary was likely to visit tribal Kanker and Rajnandgaon both identified as Left Wing Extremism (LEW)-hit districts during his two day stay in the state. Meanwhile the Maoists blew up a culvert on NH 221 at Jeeram,about 40 km from Bastar divisional headquarters of Jagdalpur,disrupting traffic for many hours on the National Highway. The rebels also killed three people,a village panchayat secretary,a Kotwar (village Chowkidar) and a village patel,and threw their bodies near a remote village Dardali,under Bhopalpattanam police station area in Bijapur district. In another incident,police seized 20 kg of explosives,ammonium nitrate and detonators from a village near Simgavaram,in Dantewada district.
