THE BIJAPUR BLOODBATH

As they close in on the last redoubts of the Maoists in Chhattisgarh, the security forces come under a deadly attack. Lessons from past ambushes remain unlearned

- SANDEEP UNNITHAN and RAHUL NORONHA

On the night of April 2, around 2,000 security personnel left their camps in Tarrem, a village in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district, for an operation. The mixed group included men from the state police’s Special Task Force, the District Reserve Guard (DRG), the Bastar Battalion and the CRPF’s counter-Maoist force, the CoBRAs. They had intelligence confirming the location of an elusive Maoist field commander, Madvi Hidma. Hidma, a veteran of several ambushes, including the April 2010 massacre of 76 CRPF troopers in Dantewada, commands the most lethal fighting unit of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA), Battalion No. 1. Comprising some 180 well-trained fighters, the group operates south of an 80-km stretch between the villages of Dornapal and Jagargunda in the state’s southern tip. The area has seen some of the heaviest fighting between Maoists and security forces in recent years. The operation was preceded by a slow build-up. In the past few months, the forces had set up four new camps around the borders of Sukma and Bijapur districts and moved five battalions into the area. The operations, directed by the Union home ministry and CRPF officials in Delhi, had even explored the idea of using the central counter-terrorism force, the National Security Guard (NSG), for special missions inside the jungle.