Over 100 rebels of outlawed Left Wing Extremist (LWE) group, CPI (Maoist), blew up at least a dozen buildings of the forest department in West Singhbhum in the wee hours of Sunday after holding nearly 20 forest officials captive and thrashing them, police said.
The incident occurred at Barkella locality under Mufassil police station, around 60 kilometers from West Singhbhum district headquarters. Armed insurgents snatched mobile phones of the forest officials, thrashed them and then used Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and cylinder bombs to blow up around 12 buildings, including residential ones, over a period of three hours, West Singhbhum Superintendent of Police Indrajit Mahtha said.
“Around 100 rebels entered the forest department’s area at around 12am. They held the 20-odd forest officials captive and blew up buildings of the forest department till 3am,” said Mahtha, adding that the rebels pasted a poster in the site of crime demanding the forest department to give forest dwellers right over the resources available in the forest.
As per data with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), West Singhbhum is among the 19 LWE-affected districts in Jharkhand. Besides the CPI (Maoist), there are at least 17 splinter outfits active in the tribal state, police said.
“The Forest Act already gives rights to forest dwellers over the forest. The Maoists are following a misconstrued ideology,” said Mahtha.
Incidents of LWE violence have been on the rise in Jharkhand since the imposition of lockdown. On May 31, Lakhinder Singh Munda, bodyguard of ASP of Chakradharpur Nathu Singh Meena lost his life along with a village chowkidar Sunder Mahto during an encounter between security forces in LWE insurgents.
In Mid of May, the Peoples Liberation Front of India (PLFI), another LWE outfit in Jharkhand had reportedly chopped the ears of two villagers at Porahat after they refused to support them, police said.
The outlawed CPI (Maoist) — the oldest and the most dreaded LWE group in Jharkhand — has also been planting pressure IEDs to target security forces in rural areas, police said. Their move, however, is causing civilian casualties as the IEDs are easily triggered by the body weight of villagers who go to forests to gather wood, they added.
