Maoists launch fresh attacks in Jharkhand, two injured

In fresh attacks, Maoists today exploded bombs injuring two officials in Jharkhand where security repulsed a naxalite bid to disrupt the second phase of elections after a fierce hour-long gunbattle.

An executive magistrate Rajendra Prasad and a constable were wounded when Maoists lobbed a bomb at their vehicle near Dadi-Srirampur village in Giridh district in Jharkhand where elections were being held in eight Lok Sabha constituencies, police sources said.

They were going to their assigned polling station in the district, about 200 kms from Ranchi, they said.

The security forces repulse a naxalite bid to disrupt polling in Bansdera in East Singhbhum, 165 kms from the Jharkhand capital, after a fierce hour-long gunbattle with the ultras, Inspector General of Police S N Pradhan said in Ranchi.

“An encounter took place at Bansdra under Ghatshila sub-division and a strong response from the CRPF and police forced the naxalites to retreat,” he said, adding a helicopter surveillance of the area was undertaken and combing operation were on.

Maoists had yesterday seized a train carrying nearly 700 passengers in Jharkhand's Latehar district for over four hours and bombed a BDO's office and shot a driver after setting ablaze trucks in Bihar. Suspected naxalites had also killed three CPI-M workers in West Bengal.