Maoist attack: Police refused to rush help to ambushed convoy of Congress leaders, says NIA

NEW DELHI: A swift reaction from the Chhattisgarh police may have saved the lives of at least some Congress leaders and others last Saturday, after Maoists ambushed them in Bastar's Darbha Valley. A reconstruction of the events by the National Investigation Agency shows that police arrived at the ambush spot more than three hours after the convoy of Congress leaders were attacked, though a police station was just a 10-minute drive away.

A team of journalists from Jagdalpur - nearly 40 km away - reached the spot at 6:30 pm, but police from the Darbha Police station, just six kilometers away, arrived only at 7:30 pm, a government source told ET. By then, Congress leaders Mahendra Karma and Nand Kumar Patel were killed, since the handful of policemen accompanying the Congress leaders had run out of ammunition.

Local MLA, Kavasi Lakhma, managed to escape by riding on a journalist's motorcycle found at the spot, to reach Darbha Police station. NIA plans to examine the journalist to ascertain reports that cops at Darbha Police station refused to go to the spot despite being aware of the ongoing Maoist attack, while asking journalists to go ahead.

Such shocking findings are bound to embarrass the Raman Singh government further. It has already been proven that police had failed to properly sanitize the route from Sukma to Jagdalpur and no policemen were posted at vulnerable points like the Darbha Valley where the attack took place. NIA probe also revealed that while Karma was killed by Maoists around 5 pm, after an exchange of fire with his guards, state Congress president Nand Kumar Patel was killed around 6:30 pm, after he was taken hostage. Maoists did not recognise either Karma or Patel, according to NIA.

Both leaders were killed after they identified themselves. Unlike Karma, Patel was not known to be on the Maoist hit-list.

The driver of Patel's car, who survived the attack, told investigators that Patel, his son and Lakhma were in the same car and all four of them hid in a ditch behind a rock after their car came under fire around 4:15 pm. Maoists found them around 4:45 pm and took then to a hill-top where Patel identified himself before a Maoist leader, called Vinod by his accomplices.

All four men were tied up and made to sit on the hill-top till 6:30 pm, before the Maoist leader received a message on his wireless set. He then asked the driver to flee, while Patel and his son were shot. The driver and Lakhma used a journalist's motorcycle lying at the ambushed spot to reach the Darbha police station around 7 pm. Later, Congress leader VC Shukla was rushed to Jagdalpur in an anti-landmine vehicle in which the police arrived at the spot at 7:30 pm.