A day after 25 CRPF jawans were killed by the Maoists in Chhattisgarh, it has emerged that a “mysterious” woman in a red sari tipped off the outlaws about the soldiers’ movement.
In fact, Manoj Kumar, who serves as a medical staff in the Burkapal CRPF camp, barely two km from the site where the jawans were massacred in south Bastar district of Sukma said on Tuesday that he spotted three women in total.
“Appearance of a woman in a red sari near our camp made me uncomfortable. Some unusual events had then followed. My worst fears came true when ear splitting sounds of firing rattled our camp later. We sensed our Delta company was ambushed by the Maoists. We then geared up to back them up,” he said.
Manoj Kumar recalled how a young woman in a red sari “surfaced” near the camp in the morning barely after jawans from the camp left for an operation to sanitise the nearby area to pave way for resumption of construction of a road and a bridge. “I have been posted in the camp for the past four years. I know everyone in the nearby villages as I treat them.
“I got curious about the mysterious woman since I had never seen her before. I enquired about her when two other women appeared near the camp later. But, these villagers misguided me saying that she was a newly married woman from the village,” he said.
Maoists were alerted by women making sounds
“Later, I found out from other villagers that the mysterious woman did not belong to their village,” he said.
As the backup team advanced, he spotted two women counting mangoes on a tree. The two women created a sound by beating two sticks they carried.
“This is a system of alerting the Maoists about presence of security forces by their informers,” he said.
As the back up team was closing in on the ambush site to rescue their colleagues trapped by Naxals, bullets fired by the Maoists from houses and tree tops in the nearby village greeted them. They could manage to evacuate some of the injured jawans and bring them to the camp.
“Our tragedy is that we never received any cooperation from local villagers despite the fact that I treat them regularly and saved many lives,” said Manoj, who first gave first aid treatment to the injured jawans.
As many as 99 jawans of 74 battalion of CRPF had left Burkapal camp at around six in the morning on the fateful day to sanitise the construction site. They were attacked by Maoists at around 12.55 pm.
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