Raipur, Oct 26 (IANS) A day after a Maoist attack killed four security personnel who were guarding National Mineral Development Corp’s (NMDC) facilities in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district, the company Monday said mining activities remained unaffected despite the incident.
An explosion Sunday killed the Central Industrial Security Forces (CISF) troopers and injured two of their colleagues when the vehicle they were travelling in ran over a landmine planted by the Maoists just outside NMDC’s iron ore deposit number-10 in Dantewada.

“The iron ore excavation has not been hit by Sunday’s unfortunate incident. Mining work is on as usual,” S.P. Himanshu, assistant general manager of NMDC, told IANS on phone from Dantewada, some 400 km from here.

Referring to the decade-old Maoist violence in the region, he said: “Blast and violence definitely create scare, but here everybody is used to live in such an atmosphere.”

Armed Maoists had in February 2006 stormed into NMDC complex in Dantewda district and killed eight CISF men and looted some 20 tonnes of explosives that were kept stored by the company to blast rocks for iron ore mining purposes.

India’s largest iron ore producer and exporter in public sector, NMDC has major mining facility in Dantewada’s Bailadila hills that contributes nearly 80 percent of the firm’s annual output.