Naxals kill 26 CRPF men in Chhattisgarh

Naxalites guerillas today ambushed a team of security personnel in the restive Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh, killing at least 26 jawans of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and injuring over a dozen others.

The incident took place at about 3 pm in Jharaghati area between Dhaurai and Gawadi, about 250 km south-west from here.

A senior official in the police headquarters here said that about 70 jawans of the 39th battalion of CRPF left the Dhaurai police station this morning for road opening duty. As the jawans reached the spot, the rebels opened indiscriminate fire at them. The CRPF jawans who were accompanied by the Special Task Force and Special Police Officers took the position and returned fire after suffering heavy casualty.

The senior police officials here confirmed the death of 26 jawans and said the toll could go up as many jawans injured in the attack were in critical condition.

This is the second biggest attack on the CRPF that had been deployed in the Naxal-infested areas to combat the red army. On April 6, the rebels ambushed a CRPF party in Dantewada district, killing 75 jawans in the biggest Naxal attack on the security personnel in the country.

Five Naxals arrested in Kolkata
A top aide of senior Naxalite leaders Kishenji and Telegu Dipak was among five Naxalites arrested from the outskirts of the city today.

The arrested rebels were Madhusudhan Mondal alias Narayan, Sachin Ghosal, Rajesh Mondal, Siddhartha Mondal and Sanjay Mondal, IG, CID-1 Neerajnarayan Pandey said.

Mondal, who hails from the Nandigram area, had recently replaced Telegu Deepak in the state committee of the banned CPI (Maoist).