| The late night attack comes a few days after the Karnataka police shot dead top naxal leader Saketh Rajan alias Prem and his associate in Chikmagalur district last week. |
| DGP S N Borkar told reporters here on Friday that a band of around 110 naxals came in three vans late on Thursday night, gunning down the sentry at the camp in a school building and fired indiscriminately at the KSRP men inside. |
| The KSRP men fired from their single-barrel rifles at the naxalites, armed with AK-47 assault rifles and grenades, he said. Borkar said it was likely that some naxalites might also have been killed and their bodies taken away. |
| Some 30 KSRP personnel were at the camp where they had returned after a combing operation in Pavagada taluk bordering naxal-infested areas of Andhra Pradesh. Hours after the strike, the Karnataka government announced the setting up of two anti-naxal squads to carry out the operations in Malnad areas and the plains. |
| Chief minister N Dharam Singh told reporters after reviewing the situation with top Home Department and police officials here this morning that the squads will be headed by a DIG and have a strength of 250 men each. |
| Prime Minister Manmohan Singh commenting on the episode said that any civilised society will take up all measures to curb violence and "I am sure that the state government will look take adequate measures". |
| A squad will be deployed in the Malnad districts of Chikmagalur, Mangalore and Udupi, where the naxals have been trying to gain a foothold, and the other in Bidar, Gulbarga, Tumkur, Raichur, Bellary and Kolar districts. |
| The chief minister said there was "no confusing stand" on the part of the government in dealing with the naxalites. ""Earlier, we had sympathies and we had a dialogue. Now, no more sympathies." |
| After last week's encounter, Dharam Singh had said the special task force would not "immediately" be sent to tackle the naxalites, but would be deployed if the situation warranted. |
Top Section
Explore Business Standard