Naxals on Monday set on fire seven vehicles and machines engaged in road construction work in Balrampur district, police said.
The incident took place in between 10am to 11am near Bandarchua village under Samri police station limits where road construction work is going on under PMGSY (Prime Minister Gram Sadak Yojna), a senior police official said.
A group of around a dozen armed ultras reached the construction site, which is located around 450 kms away from the capital Raipur on Chhattisgarh-Jharkhand border, and threatened workers to stop the work, he said.
“The Naxals then set ablaze three tucks, two JCB, one mixture machine and a road roller parked there before escaping into jungles of neighbouring Jharkhand,” Balrampur Superintendent of Police TR Koshima said.
Soon after being alerted about it, SP Balrampur rushed to the spot along with a police team and launched a search operation in the area, he said.
The Maoists wreaked havoc after a long period in north Chhattisgarh, a zone, which the state government in the past claimed to have, freed from Left Wing Extremism (LWE).