A powerful improvised explosive device (IED) weighing 50 kg, suspected to have been planted by insurgents of the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist), was unearthed by security forces from a road in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur district, a police official said here today.
Narayanpur's Additional Superintendent of Police O P Sharma told PTI that the IED was unearthed when the Central Reserve Police Force's (CRPF) 139th battalion was on an anti-Maoist operation on the Narayanpur-Antagarh road under Narayanpur police station limits.
On reaching Bharanda village, around 350 km away from Chhattisgarh's state capital Raipur, CRPF personnel spotted a wire after which they unearthed the IED packed in a steel container, placed three feet beneath the earth, the police official said.
It is suspected that the IED was planted by Maoists to trigger a landmine blast and harm security personnel, the police official said.
Later, a bomb disposal squad neutralised the IED, the police official said.
