Till late in the night, the ministers were holed up inside a government office at Salua and were not allowed to move out. A large contingent of police has been deployed to guard the ministers.

It all started in the afternoon after the group of ministers including Dasgupta, Disaster Management Minister Murtaza Hussain, Civil Defence Minister Srikumar Mukherjee, Sports Minister Kanti Ganguly and Fisheries Minister Kiranmoy Nanda of Socialist Party went to the camp at Salua.

Even before they could alight from their vehicles, the family members of the jawans as well as some jawans in civilian dress assembled there and demanded that Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee come there and apologise for the incident.

“Our husbands are over 40 and they did not have any training in combating Maoists. Why are they being sent there to become sitting ducks for Naxalites. We want the chief minister to come here and give us an answer,” said Basanti Chhetri, wife of a jawan.

When contacted, Dasgupta denied any trouble. “There were just agitated. There was pain and anguish, which is just. They want better infrastructure at the EFR camps. We are staying here and talking to them,” the finance minister said.