Maoists set afire 14 ARSS vehicles, blow up mobile tower

Armed assailants suspected to be Maoists, set afire at least 14 vehicles of ARSS Infrastructure Limited, a private construction company and a mobile tower at Pindiki under Mohana police station in south Orissa’s Gajapati district in the late night of Monday.

They also staged a road blockade between Mohana and Paralakhemundi by felling huge trees, before going on a rampage in the makeshift camp of the construction company at the village, about five km from Mohana, the block head quarter town in the district.

Around 40 to 50 ultras including several women cadres raided the camp, where a guard and four drivers were present. But, they managed to escape from the spot.

The vehicles used in the construction works including trucks, tipper, mixture, water tanker and rollers have been damaged. The machine room of the mobile tower was also destroyed.

ARSS Infrastructure had set up the makeshift camp in the village as it had undertaken the construction of 103-km road of the state highway (SH) 134, connecting Mohana and Paralakhemundi in the district. The company had started the Rs 153-crore road construction work recently, after the project was awarded to it, sources said.

Sarthak Sarangi, superintendent of police (Gajapati) said, “The road was cleared by the police and Central forces who started combing operations in the area.”

Even though a Maoist poster was recovered there, Sarangi, however, raised doubts over the incident triggered by the red rebels.

“When the Maoist raided some camp, they usually attacked the guard. But here they did not hurt them”, he said. Police was interrogating some of the drivers and the watchman who were present in the camp during the raids by the rebels.

In the leaflets, the outlawed ultras have strongly opposed the entry of multi-national companies (MNC) into the country. The entry of MNC would not benefit the common people, they said.

The letter was reportedly in the name of the head of the Vansadhara Committee of the CPI (ML).