Another cop dies in Latehar blast

LATEHAR/RANCHI: Violence continued unabated in Latehar a day after the first- phase polls in Jharkhand on Thursday with a BSF jawan dying in a landmine blast on Friday.
Two CRPF and six BSF personnel were killed in two separate incidents of landmine blast in Burwadih and Chandwa police stations on Wednesday and Thursday respectively. The driver and conductor of the bus carrying the BSF jawans were also killed in the blast on Thursday.
State police spokesman and IG SN Pradhan said the BSF cops, who were escorting a polling party back to district headquarters, recovered four landmines near Koney school, 10 km from Latehar.While three landmines were defused, the fourth one exploded. Six others were injured.
Three critically injured cops were brought to Ranchi by an IAF chopper. They are undergoing treatment at Apollo hospital.
Meanwhile, four polling officials, who were abducted by Maoists from booth number 118 in Hata village under Manika block on Thursday morning, were released on Friday, CRPF officials said. They attributed the release of polling officials to an encounter with the Maoists in Kumundi region that began late on Thursday night and continued till Friday morning.
However, state police officials said the polling officials were released on Thursday night itself as they belonged to the same caste group to which their abductors belonged.
Needless to say, there was complete lack of coordination between the Central para military forces and the state police in Latehar. Force deployment was also inadequate. "The deployment was adequate for `normal' election, but the situation was different here in that a Maoist leader Ranjan Yadav was in the fray and other Maoists wanted to reinforce their opposition to democratic process," SDM Anil Kumar said and added so many Maoists attacks were executed in Latehar to prevent Ranjan from winning the election.
The office of state chief electoral officer refused to divulge details about sensitive booths and security deployment, citing security reasons. However, a visit to Latehar revealed there was lack of para military forces in even those booths that were declared sensitive during previous elections, booth number 225 at Hutap under Chandwa block and booth number 118 at Hata being examples.
The district administration said securitymen were deployed at Kamundi, 3.5 km from Hata, and a patrolling party was assigned the job to keep a tab on Hata. This was from where the polling officials were abducted.
Meanwhile, Latehar police found a bomb near the railway station in Tori on Friday following which a few trains were stranded for around 15 minutes.