Chhattisgarh: Injuries to troops in anti-Naxal operations jump 4 times in January-March 2025

The first quarter of 2025 saw 23 improvised explosive device (IED) attacks, leading to injuries to 23 personnel from the CRPF and other forces including Chhattisgarh Police and recovery of 201 such bombs weighing more than 500 kgs.

New Delhi/Raipur: The number of security personnel who got injured in IED attacks in Chhattisgarh has jumped to around 300 per cent in the first quarter of 2025, presenting a "formidable" challenge for them to meet the Centre's deadline of eliminating Naxalites from the country by March 2026.

As summer peaks in the jungles of the "last Naxal bastion" of the central Indian state, the security agencies are "treading with caution" on roads and dirt tracks to avoid getting trapped by these IED blasts that have killed hundreds and led to loss of limbs for many over more than two decades of the insurgency.

According to official data accessed by PTI, the first quarter (January-March) of 2025 saw 23 improvised explosive device (IED) attacks, leading to injuries to 23 personnel from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and other forces including Chhattisgarh Police and recovery of 201 such bombs weighing more than 500 kgs.

The comparative figures for the same period of last year show that there were nine IED attacks in Chhattisgarh, leading to injuries to six personnel and recovery of 85 such bombs weighing about 257 kgs.

The attacks have risen by around 150 per cent while the injuries to troops have gone up by four times in the first three months of this year, according to the data.

The entire year of 2024 saw 43 cases of IED attacks which led to recovery of 292 IEDs and injuries to 33 personnel including nine from the CRPF, the lead anti-Maoist operations force across the Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected states.

"There is about 2.5 times spurt in IED attacks and four-fold increase in injuries to personnel this year in Chhattisgarh. This is because the Naxals are not undertaking one-to-one combat as they are very low on arms, ammunition, manpower and morale, and hence IEDs have become their choice ammunition to attack," a senior security officer posted in the Bastar region of the state said.

The security forces, hence, have been asked to scrupulously follow the old drill of walking the stretch rather boarding vehicles during operations and avoid taking the beaten track, he said.

On March 23 this year, two vehicle-borne Special Task Force (STF) personnel of Chhattisgarh Police suffered injuries in such a attack in Bijapur district as a convoy of 18 vehicles was returning to the base, aided by the troops of the road opening party (ROP) who sanitise roads.

"No doubt, the IEDs remain the only Trojan Horse or lethal threat to the security forces as we do not have a foolproof technology to detect them," a second officer based in Delhi said.

Even civilians have not been spared, he said, adding a total of three locals have been killed while six injured in IED blasts in Chhattisgarh so far this year.

Most of the cases of IED attacks are due to the pressure mechanism where a trooper on patrol or a civilian stepped on the device accidentally, and it went off, the officials said.

They said "adequate" IED detection tools and sniffer dogs have been allocated to all about 25-27 CRPF and CoBRA (special anti-Naxal operations commando wing of the CRPF) units in Chhattisgarh.

The security establishment had in March sounded an alert in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand following a "spike" in IED blasts and recoveries.

The sharp uptick in IED blasts and recoveries is being noticed in Chhattisgarh as multiple security forces move into core Naxal areas to meet the Union government's deadline of wiping off LWE from the country by March 2026, officials had said.