Seven policemen killed in land mine blast in Bihar

Second such attack on policemen in four days

Maoists have struck for the second consecutive time in less than four days on Tuesday, killing seven policemen in Bihar’s Aurangabad district, when station house officer (SHO) of Tandwa police station Ajay Kumar, a driver and five other cops from State Auxiliary Police (SAP) were killed in a landmine explosion.

The incident took place at 4:30 pm near the Nabinagar-Aurangabad road, when the police party was returning after patrolling duty. All the cops in the vehicle died on the spot.

Additional Director General S K Bhardwaj and Inspector General (Operations) Amit Kumar have rushed to the site.

Earlier, on November 30 evening, Maoists had attacked the 13235 Sahebganj-Danapur Intercity Express near Munger, gunning down three cops and looting five sophisticated weapons. Among those killed were Ashok Kumar, a havildar posted with the Bihar Military Police, and constables Bhola Thakur and Uday Sahi.

The primary purpose of the attack was to loot weapons, as the Maoists escaped with an AK-47, an Insas rifle, a self-loading rifle, a carbine and a .303 rifle.Though officially it has been claimed that massive combing operations have been launched to flush out the Maoists, the fact remains that such is the topography of the incident site that no policeman would dare to enter the “Red corridor” after sunset.

The dense jungle terrain along the Bihar-Jharkhand border makes it all the more difficult for cops to take the ultras head on, as it is believed that once the rebels sneak out from the Bihar territory, they enter either Jharkhand or cross over to Chhattisgarh.

The Bihar Police have, meanwhile, asked their counterparts in Jharkhand to launch a manhunt for Maoists in the jungles of Palamu.

Tuesday’s Maoist attack is the third incident since June in which the ultras have carried out their operation and escaped unchallenged. In June, three persons, including a constable, were killed when around 100 Maoists attacked the Patna-Dhanbad Intercity Express near Jamui railway station. They escaped with the cops' AK-47 and Insas rifles into the dense forest area in eastern Bihar.

The BJP on Tuesday stepped up its offensive against the Nitish Kumar regime, asking the chief minister to resign as he had “miserably failed to contain Maoist and terrorist attacks ever since the BJP was dumped from the ruling coalition in June”.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has, meanwhile, asked the chief minister to take action against the state Director General of Police (DGP) immediately, as they consider it his fault that the Maoists got away with killing policemen.

“We demand immediate removal of DGP Abhayanand,” said RJD chief whip Shakuni Choudhary.