One jawan of the elite Combat Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) unit of the Central Reserve Police Force was killed and eight of his colleagues were injured when suspected Maoists triggered an improvised explosive device (IED) blast in the Jhalda region of West Bengal's Purulia district early on Saturday.
The condition of four of the injured COBRA jawans is critical and they were air-lifted to the city for treatment.
Incidentally, seven local leaders of the All India Forward Bloc were killed in the same region — located on the border between West Bengal and Jharkhand —late on December 16, following which the security forces had intensified their operations there.
“The security forces were out on a combing operation in the early hours after receiving a tip-off that a group of Maoists had gathered to hold a meeting in the Jambani area. The rebels appeared to have got a whiff of the forces trying to surround them and triggered an IED explosion,” Zulfiqar Hasan, Inspector General (Western Range), told The Hindu .
Visram Kumar suffered splinter wounds and died on the spot.
