It Took 2 Hours To Crush The Rebels

RANCHI: It all began around 12.15am and the entire episode was over in two hours.
Around 9pm on Monday, a large number of CoBRA and Jaguar commandos arrived at Baluahi Tongri near Palamu-Latehar border through NH-75.
The security personnel were following specific inputs that the intelligence bureau in Delhi had shared with CRPF IG Rakesh Kumar Mishra and the state police.
All of them, carrying sophisticated fire-arms, reconnoitred the area, mostly covered with hills and forests, for hours. A deputy commandant of CoBRA led the forces.
The security team had information about the Maoists travelling in two SUVs and heading for Palamu. The deputy commandant asked his men to lie in ambush behind boulders.
One of the members of the security team said the silence was deafening till they heard the sound of the vehicles. “Gunshots ripped through the forests as Maoist cadres fell one by one to the bullets,” he narrated.
Some of them hiding behind the doors of the vehicles returned fire but fled after realizing that they were overpowered.
The gunshots from Maoists could do no harm to the forces. One SUV was trapped while one escaped.
A CoBRA officer said the forces then cautiously moved towards the SUV to see if anyone was alive. The encounter left 12 Maoists dead.
DGP D K Pandey termed the operation — and the death of zonal commander Anurag Yadav alias RKji alias Doctorji in particular — a “big success”.