A CRPF jawan was today killed and four others, including two officers, were injured in an IED blast in Chhattisgarh's Naxal-hit Sukma district.
The incident occurred in the forests near Murliguda village when a patrol party of the 217th battalion of the force was out to provide security to an under-construction road between Murliguda and Banda under Konta police station limits, Sukma Additional Superintendent of Police Santosh Singh told PTI.
While Head Constable Ranga Raghavan succumbed to his splinter injuries later in the day, injured Deputy Commandant Shyam Niwas is critical and his colleague and DC Prabhat Tripathi and two other jawans are stable.
The team ventured out from the Murliguda paramilitary camp for patrolling around 9 AM and the improvised explosive blast occurred soon after when they reached just about 500 m away from the camp.
The personnel inadvertently stepped over a pressure IED hidden beneath the dirt track by the Naxals, the ASP said.
The injured personnel who first evacuated to Bhadrachalam were later airlifted to Hyderabad for furthertreatment,the ASP added.
The deceased CRPF personnel have been identified as
Inspector Jagjit Singh, Assistant Sub-inspectors H B Bhatt and Narender Kumar Singh, Head Constables Jagdish Prasad Vishnoi and P R Minde and Constables Mangesh Pal Pandey, Rampal Singh Yadav, Goraknath, Nand Kumar Patra, Satish Kumar Verma, K Shankar and Suresh Kumar.
Constables Jaidev Parmanik and Salim are critically injured.
The CRPF is working without a regular chief for over a week now as the government has not appointed a new Director General after K Durga Prasad retired on February 28.
