CRPF killings: Government flayed for failure to contain terrorism

A day after a deadly ambush in Chhattisgarh's Sukma killed 25 CRPF personnel and left several injured, the opposition on Tuesday flayed the BJP-led central and state governments for their failure to contain Maoist violence.

The opposition leaders, while condemning the attack on Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) party, blamed both governments for poor coordination.

"We want to ask the state government and the central government as to who would take the responsibility for those who will now have to live a life without their men at home?" Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi said.

She said that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had made strong claims about wiping out terror and zero-tolerance to terrorism after coming to power at the Centre in 2014, but in 2017 in Chhattisgarh alone, there had been "highest number of 72 deaths of our armed men, paramilitary forces".

"So, our question to them is, when you talk about zero tolerance to terror, what effective steps are you taking both from the Centre and in the state, considering there are BJP governments both at the Centre and in Chhattisgarh?" she said.

Janata Dal United (JD-U) Spokesman K.C. Tyagi called it a "government failure" and "intelligence failure".

"We strongly condemn the attack on our paramilitary jawans. But it is evident that there was no coordination between the local police and the CRPF. As you can see, not a single state policeman has been killed in this incident. It is totally the state and the central governments' failure," Tyagi said.

The Communist Party of India (CPI) pointed out that the CRPF did not have a regular chief and also objected to the violence being termed as "red terror".

"There are several Left parties in Chhattisgarh, including the CPI, which are working in defence of tribal people. They do not agree with Maoists -- politically and ideologically and also with their form of struggle," the CPI said.

It said the governments (central and state) "need to do serious introspection in the larger context and perspective" to find out why they had been "failing to handle the situation in the region".

"It is surprising to know that CRPF does not have a regular head and proper intelligence inputs, otherwise such violence could have been avoided," the Left party observed.

On Monday, nearly 300 heavily armed Maoists, including women, ambushed a CRPF contingent in a forested patch in Sukma in Chhattisgarh.

--IANS

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