Balimela enquiry hits roadblock

HYDERABAD/VIZAG: It was on June 29 last year that 38 Greyhounds personnel had lost their lives in Chitrakonda reservoir at Balimela in a deadly Maoist ambush when their launch sank on the Andhra-Orissa border.
As irony would have it, even after a year, nothing has come out from the one-man Laxman Rao enquiry commission that was asked to look into the reasons that led to the worst debacle in the history of the elite commando force."The morale of the Greyhounds cops after the incident was very low. In hindsight, going slow on the enquiry was the only option for the government," a senior police officer involved in anti-naxal operations told TOI.
The enquiry hit a roadblock with little cooperation from the Orissa government and its cops. Since the incident took place on the Orissa side, the Orissa government's permission is a must to carry out a full-fledged probe, which wasn't forthcoming. "Also, with no witness alive to tell the sequence of events that led to the tragedy (the launch sank in the reservoir drowning 38 cops in the aftermath of heavy gun firing from Maoists), it's like a wild goose chase," an IPS officer said.
Sources said there was a deliberate attempt to go slow on the enquiry since the authorities do not want to drive the last nail in the coffins of the Greyhounds personnel. "Whatever the reasons, it was no point digging an old grave. In the first place, it was foolhardy on the part of the cops to return in broad daylight and that too on a boat. Little wonder, they became sitting ducks for the Maoists," a retired officer said.
"The fact that the elite force blundered in sending all the 38 personnel aboard a single boat cannot be wished away," an expert said. On that fateful day, the Greyhounds cops went in search of a Maoist dalam by crossing the Sileru river to Orissa and it was during their return, the cops faced a barrage of sudden gun firing from three sides of Chitrakonda, a hillock, by the Maoists.
The assault took the cops by surprise as many of them were inside the launch. "As those on the deck moved to one side of the launch to return the fire, the launch capsized," a Greyhounds officer said, recalling the horrific tragedy. It took 15 days for the ace divers to bring out the bodies of the Greyhounds men. The only head to roll in the aftermath of the tragedy was the shifting of Greyhounds force IG Rajiv Trivedi.
Meanwhile, the family of the launch driver Eswara Rao, who too was killed, is living in a misery. "Though reluctant, he was forced to take out his boat following the orders of the Orissa cops to ferry the Greyhounds men," Vijayalakshmi, Rao's wife, said wailing inconsolably at her home in Palasa in Srikakulam district. The launch was Orissa state government-owned.
"Though the Orissa government provided Rs 2 lakh ex-gratia to the family, I have to take care of my three children," she said. While the eldest daughter discontinued her studies for lack of money, two other children are studying in a Sileru school.
She even asked the Andhra cops to fund the education needs of her three children. "Visakhapatnam SP Akun Sabharwal has promised to provide free education for my children. But nothing has materialised so far," she bemoaned.