Bhopal: Maoists on Tuesday ambushed a Doordarshan (DD) crew and a police team in the forested village of Nilwaya in Chhattisgarh’s south Bastar district of Dantewada killing a cameraman and two cops.
DD cameraman Achyutanand Sahu was the third scribe killed by Maoists in Bastar in last five years.
While a local journalist Nemichand Jain was killed in south Bastar district of Sukma in 2013, another scribe was killed in Bijapur in Bastar the previous year.
The three-member DD team was in Nilwaya under Aranpur police limits for election coverage, when armed Maoists opened indiscriminate fire on them, killing the cameraman and two security personnel, assistant sub-inspector Rudra Pratap Singh and assistant constable Mangloo Mandawi, Dantewada district superintendent of police Abhishek Pallav said. Two constables were also injured in the incident.
“The media team had gone to Aranpur for election coverage. They were covering the historic event on how tribal inhabitants of three villages in Nilwaya area are gearing up to exercise their franchise for the first time in three decades in the November 12 Assembly elections in Bastar,” the SP said.
Maoists hiding in the jungle first shouted, “Mediavalon ko maro maro (kill media people) and then opened indiscriminate fire on them, leading to death of one scribe and two cops.
The Maoists snatched away the camera from the slain scribe. Police, however, recovered the weapons of the two slain cops snatched away from them by the Naxals, the SP said
“Police had recovered 10-15 IEDs at the attack site,” special DG, Naxal operation, D M Awasthi said. The polling booth has been shifted to Aranpur from Nilwaya this time to ensure free and fair polls in the Assembly elections in the area.Incidentally, spokesman of Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee spokesman Ganesh Uiki had on October 25 issued a press release inviting media men to come to interior Bastar to highlight the living condition of local tribals. This was the third Maoist attack in Bastar in four days.
