Sukma tragedy : When villagers were compelled to attack their CRPF 'friends'

Who knew that a road inauguration ceremony would turn into a sight of a brutal and deadly massacre leading to death of our bravehearts.

What is more astonishing is the transformation of a beautiful friendly relationship into a non-supportive deceiving one.

This friendly relationship was once shared between the villagers of the Burkapal hamlet and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawans.

The villagers were not only supportive but also acted as informers for the security forces updating them about the Naxal activities going on in and around the Maoist hotbed of Bastar.

The relationship was so closely shared due to the proximity of the 74 CRPF battalion camp with the Burkapal village.

To know how this fruitful relationship turned sour, ANI did a ground research and talked with the CRPF personnel as well.

On reaching the site of the dreadful incident, our ANI reporter saw that the villagers were sitting there together. On asking one of the CRPF personnel, he was informed that the people had left the village post the attack and had returned then only.

It was told that things changed two months back when the head of the village Madhvi was killed by the naxalites.

Madhvi was a helping hand to CRPF and acted as their informer, but post his death even the villagers stopped visiting the security camp and distanced themselves from the personnel.

"On the day of the attack, the firing was done from the side of the village also. The naxals has formed a u-shaped ambush, one end of which was the Burkapal village. The innocent villagers were used as human shield by the Maoists. They must have forced the villagers to act in this way," CRPF officer D.P. Upadhyay told ANI.

One of the villagers Gogi told that they heard rounds of fire after which they left the village. He also informed about the murder of their head by the naxals.

It is also believed that some of the naxals were also killed during the attack.

As many as 25 CRPF personnel were killed in the encounter with Naxals earlier on Monday that took place in Chhattisgarh's Sukma.

Around 90 CRPF jawans were part of the road opening party when they were attacked by the Naxals.

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh cancelled his engagements in Delhi and rushed for Raipur to hold a meeting.

The attack took place on personnel of the 74th Battalion of the CRPF as they were assisting the local population in road building activity in the district.

The Congress Party has described the encounter killing of 12 CRPF personnel by Naxals as extremely unfortunate and called on the Narendra Modi-led NDA government to initiate appropriate counter action.

Yesterday, Turkey also condemned the Sukma Naxal attack.