Toll in Maoist attack could be 'pretty heavy': MHA

The Home Ministry today said the toll in the Maoists attack on a bus in Chhattisgarh could be "pretty heavy" as the vehicle had the capacity to carry 65 to 70 passengers, who were both policemen and civilians.

"We have very sketchy details about the incident. We know that a bus has been blasted and the casualty can be pretty heavy," Special Secretary (Internal Security) in the Home Ministry Utthan Kumar Bansal said.

Asked whether most of the passengers in the bus were civilians, he said "I would guess so".

Bansal said the capacity of such a bus is normally 65 to 70 passengers but he has no information about the exact number of casualties as of now.

"I don't have information about the injured," he said.

Bansal said the Special Police Officers, who fell prey to the Naxal attack, were on their way to participate in recruitment to the regular police force.

"The passengers of the bus were partly civilians and partly SPOs who were proceeding for some kind of a recruitment from Sukma," he said.

Asked whether the SPOs were fresh recruits, Bansal said "I presume so. The information that I have is that these people were SPOs. The system is that SPOs are not deployed on the roads like a regular police officer and apparently some of them have been inducted into the regular police now and perhaps they were going for that kind of an induction. But this is a very preliminary report".