Thaindian News

Dantewada (Chhattisgarh), June 28 (IANS) The coffins of three Chhattisgarh policemen killed in a Maoist landmine blast in Dantewada Sunday night were transported in a municipality garbage collection vehicle for the guard of honour ceremony, the state’s police chief admitted Tuesday.

“No ambulance was available at the time… it was the only municipality vehicle available,” Director General of Police (DGP) Vishwa Ranjan told IANS.

He said the mini-truck was washed and cleaned before the coffins were placed on it.

The bodies of Laxman Bhagat, Aslan Ekka and Bhushan Mandwai were brought to district headquarters Dantewada town from the blast site in Kirandul, some 40 km away, Monday. The bodies were then dispatched to the policemen’s respective native villages.

Dantewada’s Superintendent of Police Ankit Garg admitted that it was a municipality vehicle, but declined to elaborate.

When asked whether it was a garbage vehicle, he said after a long silence: “I don’t know what kind of vehicle it was, but it was a municipality vehicle.”

Dantewada-based journalist Vinod Singh said several ambulances are available in Kirandul and its nearby town Bacheli. The two towns, which have several hospitals, markets and residential colonies for employees of state-run mining company National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) , are separated by a 10-km hilly road.

“No one made any effort to bring an ambulance. A constable who was asked to dispatch the bodies for the guard of honour, phoned the Kirandul Nagar Palika to send a vehicle,” Singh told IANS.

Chhattisgarh’s opposition Congress strongly condemned the incident and sought punishment for those who transported the coffins in a garbage collection vehicle.

“It’s shocking for me and the Congress to know that martyrs’ bodies were ferried in a garbage vehicle, I condemn it. It is a proof of their insensitiveness towards brave police personnel fighting the Maoists in jungles of Chhattisgarh,” Ajit Jogi, Congress leader and former chief minister, said in a statement sent to IANS.

“Such an insulting behaviour by the authorities will lead to further fall in the morale of thousands of policemen…the state government must suspend officials and initiate the strongest punishment against those responsible for ferrying coffins in garbage vehicle,” the statement said.

The three policemen were killed just four km from Kirandul police station, more than 420 km south of state capital Raipur.

They were part of a seven-member police team which was travelling in a vehicle that ran over a landmine planted by the Maoists.

Another policeman succumbed to injuries later.

Chhattisgarh’s sprawling 40,000 square km Bastar region, comprising five districts, has been a Maoist hotbed since the late 1980s.