CRPF men killed in CG took ambulance in violation of rules

A "shortcut" decision to board an ambulance by the leader of a CRPF party in Chhattisgarh's Naxal hotbed of 'Darbha valley' today led to the killing of five of its personnel and the civilian driver.
Terming the incident a result of "blatant violation" of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in the anti-Maoist operations grid, senior officials said boarding a vehicle by troops on an tactical task is a clear "no" and akin to inviting a fatal ambush like the one that occured in the noon today.
"It is a very sad incident that the troops were killed in such a cowardly act by Naxals. But this is a case of clear violation of SOPs. The troops should not have taken the shortcut of hopping on an ambulance," official sources said.

CRPF Inspector General (Operations) in Chhattisgarh H S Sidhu told PTI that they are still investigating the incident but the troops boarding the ambulance has surprised them.
Sources said the team leader of the CRPF group that boarded the '108-Sanjeevani' ambulance, Inspector M K Rai, flagged down the white-coloured vehicle about 5kms before the Darbha police station in Sukma district as apparently they thought that they would not be identified inside the van.
The troops had just moved a kilometre when a blast carried out by Naxals near 'Kamnar' tossed the medical van killing six of the total nine occupants.

Rai was killed along with four of his junior colleagues while the driver of the vehicle also succumbed few minutes after the fatal explosion carried out by deploying Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).
Sources said the troops had gone to sanitise a route for the movement of an in-coming convoy of polling parties and when the group saw the ambulance passing by they boarded it with an intent to quickly reach the Darbha police station.
"They probably thought that the ambulance will give them cover but they forgot they were in their green combat uniforms which could have given out their identity," a senior official said.