The sequence of events pieced together from the spot and accounts from officers in the security forces indicated that the slain Deputy commandant Vijaypal Singh of 66 Battalion of CRPF paid with his life for trying to be valiant without tact.

“After the incident, we intercepted calls of some Maoists. It appears the officer was on their hit list the day they came to know he had come from Kashmir and was not familiar with the terrain and the nature of his enemies,” a senior state police officer said.

“From his movement, they knew he moved unguarded and so could be targeted,” he added.

Security forces are said to have picked up three persons from the villages near the spot where the blast occurred. Going by the accounts of jawans and officers in the security forces, the deputy commandant was moving around freely despite repeated warnings of his assistants. He was specifically asked not to pass through the Tentultala forest stretch on way to the Kadashole camp of the CRPF and take the same route back, stated a preliminary inquiry conducted by the CRPF authorities.

“When warned, the officer told us nothing would happen to him as he had worked in Kashmir as an expert in IED and other explosives. We tried to tell him that the situation in Kashmir and in the LWE areas are different. However, he did not listen to us,” said a CRPF officer of the 66 Battalion posted in Ramgarh camp in West Midnapore.

Singh reportedly also declined to use anti-mine vehicles and the pilot car with him. He also refused to travel in a private car that was tailing the CRPF vehicle (Bolero) blown up by the Maoists. According to police sources, Maoist squad members of Goaltore, an area located about 20 km away form the spot, and their informers have been tracking the officer’s movement for the last few days.  

Vijay Raman, Special DG (CRPF) told The Indian Express over phone: “We have strictly instructed our officers to follow all the operational guidelines. If any violation is found, the responsible officer will face disciplinary action. We have ordered a probe in this incident and we will move forward after we get the inquiry report.”

According to CRPF guidelines, senior officers should always move in a convoy that has a pilot car, private car and an anti-land mine vehicle to clear the road.

In this case, none of these was there with the vehicle in the slain deputy commandant was traveling in. Also, any CRPF vehicle on patrol has to be guarded by the vehicles of the state police and the local police station must know about the movement. All these rules were violated in this case. A senior CRPF officer said: “It seems all CRPF vehicles have become marked to the Maoists. We are contemplating a total overhaul of our transport fleet and discard the CRPF tags on those.”

“It seems most of these IEDs were planted in Lalgarh and surrounding areas during the peak of the tribal movement when there was no police movement in the area. The Maoists have a circuit network for the IEDs and they have a network map to locate in which areas the IEDs were planted and through which areas the wires have passed. Detecting all these mines planted under the road is virtually impossible as the mine detectors used by the CRPF and the state police can detect explosives only if these are planted at 6-10 inches deep. But the IEDs used in the recent blasts were planted under 4-5 feet below the road,” said the senior CRPF officer.

A CID team from Kolkata will visit the spot tomorrow. “Our intelligence inputs suggest Maoists are planning a bigger operation in some other areas. For that they might be trying to divert attention of the security forces,” added the CID official.