NIZAMABAD (AP), FEB 23: Two jawans of the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) were killed and another 38 injured, most of them seriously, in a claymore mine blast triggered by Naxalites of the outlawed People's War Group (PWG) at Daggi under Dichpally police station limits of Nizamabad district this morning.The victims were identified as A V Phalgun (30) of Kerala and S E Kannur (29) of Karnataka.
The incident took place on National Highway no. 7 when the jawans were returning to Hyderabad in a State Road Transport Corporation (APSRTC) bus after they were relieved from election duty. The CISF personnel boarded the bus at Dichpally camp at about 9 15 am and the blast occurred barely 30 minutes later.
This is the second attack by PWG Naxalites in less than 24 hours after the second phase of polling in the state was completed without any major violence. Yesterday, within an hour after polling was over, two policemen and four tribals were killed in a landmine blast near Chintapalli in the agency areaof Visakhapatnam district.
Contrary to apprehensions that the PWG might resort to large-scale violence before the elections in a bid to enforce its boycott call, polling in the Naxalite strongholds in Telangana region and agency areas of coastal districts went on unhindered barring stray incidents. But just when the police heaved a sigh of relief, the Naxals struck.
Going by the manner in which today's explosion took place, the operation appears to have been well-planned. The claymore mines, used to set off the explosion, were planted at the bottom of a tree adjoining the road passing through a forest belt of the district.
According to the police and the injured, 82 CISF jawans, all of them belonging to the NTPC unit at Ramagundam, were travelling in two buses and a lorry. Immediately after the first bus carrying 35 jawans passed the spot, the landmine was triggered and the entire impact was taken by the second vehicle in which 41 persons were travelling. The site was 35 km from the districtheadquarters.
Such was the impact of the blast that the bus went up in the air and fell to the right. Among the injured were conductor A N Raju and driver M A Bhari.
Around the same time, Army personnel proceeding from Hyderabad to Nagpur stopped at the site and shifted the CISF jawans to the government hospital here. Twenty two of the injured were later shifted to the Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) while two were admitted to the L.V. Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad. Fourteen are being treated at the hospital here.
The road was steep with a sharp curve with an R & B sign board indicating ``accident prone area go slow.'' There were plastic buckets, food, wires and other material near the hideout, about 100 metres from the road. The two big boulders near the tree blew up into pieces and the stones fell all over the place. It is believed that the Sirnapalli dalam or a special squad of the PWG was responsible for the incident. Earlier, hundreds of people including RTC staff gathered at thehospital and raised slogans against the staff protesting against lack of proper treatment. They also tried to attack some doctors but the authorities meanwhile arranged for shifting the seriously injured to Hyderabad.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
