Around a dozen armed rebels of CPI (Maoist) torched construction equipment and vehicles of a road construction company at Lavkhamman locality under Palkot police station of Gumla district on Sunday night about 70 km from district headquarter.

Sources in the police said that they suspect involvement of local area commander of CPI (Maoist) Budheshwar and his armed squad who has been operating in this area.

Meanwhile, an FIR was lodged by contractor Munna Singh at the police station and the case is being investigated. 

“Combing operation has been started and deployment of additional security forces has been done. Incident took place around 10 PM on Sunday when armed rebels attacked the construction site. They threatened labourers to stop construction work and later on torched some construction equipment and vehicle,” said a DSP rank police official of Gumla district.

The official said that so far it has not been ascertained that whether rebels had demanded levy from contractor.

But then this proposed under-construction six km road has strategic importance for police and security forces that passes through Dhangari and Goindhara that connects localities under Palkot and Sursang.

This is one of the strongholds of the rebels, where district police and CRPF have been jointly carrying anti-naxal operation.

Local sources said that even on Sunday afternoon district police and CRPF had carried long range patrolling in the area on getting information of the movement of rebels.

“Rebels always obstruct road construction and in order to make their presence felt rebels commit such kind of crime. As far as this case is concerned construction work remained suspended for a long time due to lockdown and it had just started when the rebels attacked construction site,” said Additional SP (Operation) Brijendra Kumar Mishra.