Kolkata, Oct 20 (Inditop.com) In a 15-minute guerilla offensive, armed Maoist rebels killed two police officers and abducted another during a daring daylight raid on a police station in West Bengal’s West Midnapore district Tuesday, officials said.
“Two police officers have been killed and the officer-in-charge of the Sankrail police station abducted,” state Chief Secretary Ashok Mohan Chakraborty told mediapersons after a high-level meeting convened by Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at the state secretariat Writers’ Buildings.
The rebels also looted money from the Keshiapata branch of the State Bank of India, close to the Sankrail police station in Jhargram sub-division, and left posters demanding the release of a jailed Maoist leader, Chhattradhar Mahato.
The looted cash amounted to around Rs.1 million. SBI branch manager Bairagi Charan Naik said the operation was led by a woman who had firearms in both hands with a rifle dangling from her shoulders. “She was speaking fluent English, Bengali and Hindi,” he said.
Eye-witnesses said a group of around 50 Left-wing rebels, riding motorcycles, abducted the Sankrail police station Officer-in-charge Atindranath Dutta at gunpoint from his quarter and brought him to the police station. There the Maoists shot dead sub-inspector Dibakar Bhattacharya and assistant sub-inspector Swapan Roy, and looted 19 firearms before whisking away Dutta to their hideout on a motorcycle.
Owning up responsibility for the raid, Koteswar Rao alias Kishanjee, a top leader of the banned Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist), issued a threat to kill any senior police officer of the rank of director general or inspector general if they ventured into the area. He also threatened to shoot dead Dutta if attempts were made to free him by force.
“Yes, we conducted the raid. We killed the police officers and abducted the OC. And if the director general or any inspector general rank police officer goes there to free the OC, we will shoot them dead also,” Kishanjee warned.
Describing Dutta as a “prisoner of war”, Kishanjee sought the release of arrested CPI-Maoist women members between the age group of 40-60 and those who have children at home as condition for setting the police officer free.
Inspector General of Police (Western Range) Kuldeep Singh confirmed the rebels’ raid.
Sub-inspector Sukhendu Mahato, who had a close shave as the Maoists’s bullets missed him, said: “They came on 15 motorcycles. They took away all the firearms. These were mainly the arms we had seized from the public”.
According to police sources, the staff at the police station were heavily outnumbered in the sudden assault and many fled.
In a meticulously planned operation, while one group of rebels raided the police station, the other looted the bank and pasted posters demanding the release of arrested tribal leader and People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) leader Chhattradhar Mahato.
The Maoists broke open the door after the manager closed it to prevent them from entering.
A large police force left for the remote spot, but reached the police station late as the Maoists planted landmines on the way. “It’s a major incident. We are seeing what can be done,” the chief minister said when first reports of the attack reached him.
Dibakar Bhattacharya and Swapan Roy are the first two police officers to be killed by the ultras after the West Bengal government launched a massive security operation to flush out Maoist rebels from Lalgarh, 200 km west of Kolkata, in June. The Sankrail police station is located to the south of Lalgarh and close to the state’s border with Jharkhand and Orissa.
