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Bhubaneswar ( Orissa):
The death toll of Wednesday's land mine blasts in Malkangiri district, has gone to 26 with recovery of more dead bodies from the blasts side, high placed Home Department sources said on Thursday morning.
The van carrying the elite anti-Maoists security forces was on its way from MPV 126, 50km from Malkangiri district headquarters town, to MPV-41, when the landmine went off. The blast occurred at around 4.45 pm when some policemen were trying to clearing the road for their vehicle to move forward, sources said.
However 17 dead bodies have been identified. They were Malkangiri Reserve Inspector Sarat Mishra, Bitu Jena( Kalimela), Subrata Das, Sunil Raul both from Gobindapally, Chitta Nayak( Ganjam), Ganapati Nayak and Ranjit Maharana(Maithili), Chitta Pradhan( Kendrapara), Prasad Dora( Chitrakonda), Kanhu Charan Debata(Korkunda), Ganga Madkami, Kanta Kumar and Simanchal Behera, all from Gajapati, Gobinda Kope(Gangala), Sudarshan and Temant Majhi of Kesinga. While dead bodies of others have not yet been identified and all the dead bodies have been brought to Malkangiri district headquarters town, sources said.
The SOG personnel were ambushed by the Maoists, who felled trees on Kalimela-Motu road to block the vehicle, while some of them alighted to clear the road they were fired on by the Maoists and their vehicle was damaged by the landmine explosion triggered at about the same time, highly placed Police sources said.
As the vehicle was an anti-landmine one it was not damaged badly in the blast but overturned. Mean while when the security personnel were trying to come out of the vehicle the Maoists gunned down them, sources said.
The explosion that came 18 days after the Maoists carried out an audacious attack on a launch carrying elite anti-Maoists Greyhound police personnel of Andhra Pradesh in Balimela Reservoir in the same district. That incident left 38 dead and dozens injured.
Sources maintained that CPI (Maoists) Central Military Commission Chief Vasavraj, CPI (Maoists) Chief Ganapati and Andhra-Orissa border zonal committee Chief Sabya Sachi Panda jointly plotted the incident thorough their People's liberation of Guerrilla Army (PLGA).
Malkangiri SP Satish K Gajbhiye said, the Maoists after the blast, resorted to indiscriminate firing to prevent the entry of more cops. "As the incident took place in the afternoon, we suspect they did so to escape under the cover of darkness," the SP said.
Orissa Police has alerted its Andhra and Chhattisgarh counterparts to keep a close watch on border areas to check cross-border infiltration, sources added. The incident has sent a shock wave among security forces working in Maoists infected districts of the State.
Meanwhile, thousands of security forces, who have been chasing the fleeing Maoists have not got a major headway till Thursday morning while massive search operations are on at several undisclosed locations of the district.
