PW blows up RTC bus; 20 killed

WARANGAL: At least 20 people died andanother 16 were injured when People’s War (PW) naxalites blew up astate-owned RTC bus near Chintagudam village in Warangal district late on Mondaynight.Initial reports said the naxalites blasted the bus carryingcivilians mistaking it to be transporting policemen who had participated in anencounter near Eturunagaram on Sunday.According to informed sources,police forces had used state-owned RTC buses to reach the encounter site onSunday and returned to Eturunagaram with the bodies of slain naxalites on Mondayevening. The naxalites are believed to have triggered land mines with the aim ofambushing these returning policemen.A majority of the people killed in theblast were tribespeople from remote villages in the Tupakulagudem forest area,Warangal range deputy inspector-general of police (DIG) Damodar Gautam Sawangconfirmed to The Times of India.Most of the passengers in the Tupakulagudem-Eturunagaram bus werereturning from a shandy in Kannaigudem. As the bus rumbled towards Eturunagaramsometime between 7.30 pm and 7.45 pm, the naxalites triggered land mines placedunder a culvert.The blast caught the bus at midsection and broke it intotwo. Unconfirmed reports said that the naxalites also fired at thebus.Mutilated bodies were strewn all over the place. Several people weregrievously wounded. The victims were found two hours later around 9.30 pm, whenpassengers of a Tupakulagudem-bound Eturunagaram bus reached the spot andnoticed, in the pitch darkness, the bus blown to bits. They alerted the policeand shifted the injured to hospitals in the area. CM Chandrababu Naidu condemnedthe blast as a dastardly act. Naidu will be air-dashing to Chintagudem early onTuesday.The incident recalls the burning of the Kakatiya Express by thePeople’s War naxalites in 1990 in which 46 passengers were killed. Severalyears later the group itself apologised to the people of the state.DIGSawang said the latest incident only underlined the ‘heights ofdesperation’ of the People’s War. “Mere sorries will not worknow. The PW has to pay for it,’’ he said.