Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram will on Wednesday make an on-the-spot assessment and review the situation in Chhattisgarh after the Maoist attack that killed 76 CRPF personnel.
Mr. Chidambaram, who left for Raipur on Wednesday morning, is expected to meet Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh and other senior security officials, sources said.
On Tuesday, 76 CRPF personnel, who appeared to have walked into the Maoists’ “trap”, were killed in the Mukrana forests of Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh, one of the strongholds of the Maoists.
The attack took place between 6 am and 7 am on a batch of 82, including 80 CRPF personnel. Two were from the local police.
The personnel were returning to the base camp as part of a joint operation when it came under fire from hill features just about 4 km away.
Virtually an entire company of the CRPF was wiped out when 75 of its personnel including Deputy Commandant Satyawan Singh Yadav and Assistant Commandant B.L. Meena along with the head constable of the Chhattisgarh police were killed.
The attack shook the Centre and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh held a meeting with Mr. Chidambaram and assessed the situation. Both of them expressed shock over the attack and grief over the loss of lives.
The Prime Minister had called it a “horrific” incident.
Mr. Chidambaram, rattled by the “very high” casualty, said something must have gone “drastically wrong” in the joint operation as the personnel seemed to have walked into a trap.
