Landmine timing failed ambush: Maoists

ROURKELA: The Maoists have claimed responsibility for the ambush attempt against the CoBRA unit of the CRPF in adjacent Jharkhand and regretted that the targeted bus escaped the landmine blast by a whisker. Claiming responsibility for the Thursday attack, spokesperson for the Jharkhand Regional Committee of the outfit Samarjee alias Anmol Hembram said it was to avenge the brutalities of the security forces during the ‘Area Domination Operation’ in the dense Saranda forest areas along the Orissa-Jharkhand border.  Talking to a section of the media over phone, Samarjee lamented that the blast was wrongly timed and failed to inflict casualty on the security forces. He warned of similar attacks if the security forces continued to unnecessarily torture the poor and hapless villagers in the name of combing operation. Sources said before the massive explosion a school bus of SAIL company had passed through the site and luckily escaped the catastrophe. The outfit, however, clarified that the target was specific to the security personnel and never intended to cause harm to innocent civilians. On Thursday around 7.25 am a bus, which was supposed to carry CRPF’s CoBRA personnel, escaped narrowly a powerful explosion that had occurred on the Hilltop Road at the bordering Kiriburu area in West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand, about 120 km from Rourkela. The bus had just crossed over the landmine when the huge vibration of the powerful explosion shattered the rear windshield of the bus.   Jharkhand security forces backed by their Orissa counterparts had recently carried out the biggest-ever combing operation in the Saranda forest in what was being described by the Maoists as ‘Operation Anaconda’. Earlier, Jharkhand’s Chaibasa-based DIG Naveen Singh had claimed that the Maoists were left rattled and scurried for cover as the ‘core areas’ of Saranda were sanitised.