Raipur, July 9 (IANS) Maoists Friday made a failed bid to blow up a police vehicle in Chhattisgarh’s restive Bastar region, police said.

Maoists triggered twin landmine blasts in Bijapur district on a forested stretch, about 410 km south of capital Raipur, on the Geedam-Bijapur road targeting a vehicle carrying several state policemen but the blasts missed the target.

‘The explosives went off just after the vehicle crossed. It was a lucky escape, everyone escaped unhurt,’ Bijapur superintendent of police Avinash Mohanty told IANS.

The blast bid by Maoists came a day after dozens of armed rebels stormed into the house of Congress leader Avdhesh Singh Gautam in neighbouring Dantewada district and killed his close relative and one of his employees and injured three of his family members.

Chhattisgarh has been rocked by a series of blasts and gunfights in 2010. In the past three months, the state witnessed the killings of 150 people, mostly security personnel.