Essential supplies have been airdropped to a CRPF contingent in Naxal-hit Dantewada region after Chattisgarh Police is believed to have dragged its feet in ensuring safe passage of rations due to heavy Maoist presence.
A camp in Chintalnar comprising two to three companies of 62nd battalion of CRPF, one of which was wiped out by Maoists on April six, have had their supplies aidropped two days back as the state police refused to accompany the paramilitary force in reaching there, official sources said.
Chintalnar was the site of the Naxal attack which killed 76 security personnel.
The Naxal presence in the area was picked up by the security agencies which suggested that Maoists had laid an ambush and were blocking all the supplies to the CRPF camp.
The jawans, virtually facing a blockade, sent messages to its headquarters in Raipur and Dantewada following which a high-level meeting was held.
However, the meeting could not come to a decision after the CRPF sought protection of state police in ensuring that supplies, which also included anti-malaria drugs and mosquito repellent creams, reach the area. State police officials said it was not possible for it to send a road opening party to Chintalnar as heavy presence of Maoists was reported around nearby Errabore.
Pushed to wall, the CRPF was left with no other option than to send the supplies through helicopter which airdropped the items at the camp, the sources said.
Neither the state police nor the para-military force officials were willing to come on record and privately they blamed each other for lack of coordination.
The lack of cohesiveness between the state police and the CRPF has been brought forward by the one-member committee of E Rammohan, which probed the Dantewada incident.
During the meeting, it was said that the Naxals had heavily mined the area and were ready to ambush any relief supply party going towards Chintalnar.
Besides this, reports suggested that the so-called military commission of Naxals, which finalises its strategies, has rushed in its activists from the neighbouring Jharkhand towards Chintalnar area, the sources said.
Maoists have been restless ever since the CRPF camp came in Chintalnar. They consider it as 'capital' of Dandakaranya, a forest tract in the country's central-southern region covering parts of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra, where they virtually run a parallel government envisioning a "liberated" zone. PTI
