Naxals say didn't intend to target DD crew, Police punctures claim

The banned outfit, Communist Party of India (Maoist) has said that it had no intention to kill Doordarshan News cameraman Achutyanand Sahu in the recent attack that took place in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada on October 30. The Naxals also claimed that they were unaware of the fact that Sahu was a media person.

However, Dantewada Superintendent of Police (SP) Abhishek Pallav punctured their claims and questioned why Naxals looted Sahu's camera if they did not intend to target media. The cop also detailed how gravely Sahu was injured.

"Why was the camera looted? For the first time, while running away, they left two automatic weapons but did not throw a video camera. Why? Because it has recorded evidence of what happened in the first few minutes of targeted media ambush? Multiple bullet wounds and multiple fractures of skull bones sustained by the cameraman in no ways indicates it was by mistake, Naxals saw him shooting posters with a camera for 10 minutes and then ambush started," Pallav said.

Condemning the killing of the DD cameraman and the soldiers, the SP said, "I salute my thirty brave soldiers who repulsed this barbaric PLGA ambush in which more than 200 Naxals were forced to flee leaving weapons and saved two media personnel. Intelligence reports of three Naxals also being killed and cremated yesterday are coming while one Naxal has sustained injuries on the hand."

The CPI (Maoist), in its statement, also warned media not to visit the Red Corridor area along with the security forces.

"We never attack media intentionally. DD Cameraman Achutyanand Sahu was killed after being caught in the ambush and we had no intention of targeting the media. We appeal media persons and officers who are assigned or deployed by the Election Commission for polls preparations to visit the area without the security forces," Secretary of Darbha Division Committee CPI (Maoist), Sainath said in the letter.

Sahu, along with three police personnel, were killed in an ambush in poll-bound Dantewada district, a Maoist hotbed in the heavily forested central Indian state.

Chhattisgarh will go to the polls in two phases, first on November 12 and second November 20. The results will be announced on December 11.