Patna/Aurangabad: The CPI (Maoist) on Wednesday owned up responsibility for the Aurangabad encounter on July 18 at Dumaria Nala forest area in Aurangabad district, in which 10 CRPF personnel and three Maoists were killed. Paramjeet, spokesperson of the central zonal committee of the outfit, in a press statement admitted three members of the organization lost their lives.
He said, “The three cadres who died in the encounter are Prince alias Jitender, Harinder alias Uday and Bipin alias Kisan. Our brave cadres killed 10 CoBRA jawans of the CRPF. We laid the trap by giving them misleading information over the telephone which was under their surveillance. The fourth body is of a villager, not of our cadre.”
He said the operation was carried out to shake the confidence of the security forces.
A CRPF official said, “The area has dense forest and hundreds of landmines could be planted there by the ultras. The evacuation (of injured CRPF personnel) suffered as chopper could not land there. Despite the huge loss of lives that shocked the jawans in operation, we prepared another 50 men to evacuate the injured.”
Sources said many sophisticated arms of the security personnel were damaged during the explosions.
The Maoist spokesman demanded immediate withdrawal of Operation Green Hunt, saying their attacks would continue till it ends. “Our organization has enough arms and ammunition to take on security personnel. These will be used as per the requirement,” he added.
He also claimed security forces were torturing innocents villagers, alleging they were supporters of Maoists.
Meanwhile, a core committee meeting of the top brass of Bihar Police and CRPF’s CoBRA wing was held at Gaya on Wednesday. “The officers are now trying to find out where the security forces went wrong on the day of encounter,” said an officer.