Thaindian News

Raipur, June 30 (IANS) A day after 26 security personnel were killed in a Maoist massacre, normal life was hit hard in the interiors of Chhattisgarh’s southern restive Bastar region as a two-day strike called by the rebels began in the state Wednesday, officials said.
“There is no fresh violence reported from anywhere in Bastar in the wake of the Maoists strike that began from the early hours but road traffic has surely been hit,” Girdhari Nayak, additional director general of police, told reporters here.

He added that bus operators have withdrawn vehicles from the interiors of violence-hit districts of Bastar region - Narayanpur, Kanker, Bastar, Bijapur and Dantewada - fearing attacks by guerrillas during the strike period.

Maoists slaughtered 24 CRPF personnel and two policemen Tuesday in Narayanpur district when about a 70-member joint contingent of the CRPF and the state police was returning after a road opening assignment in a thickly-forested terrain.

Chief Minister Raman Singh Wednesday chaired a meeting at the state secretariat with CRPF Director General Vikram Srivastava and top officials of the home and police department to review the security situation in the wake of rising attacks on security forces.

Meanwhile, the bodies of all the 26 deceased security personnel were airlifted to Raipur from Narayanpur in the morning hours and post-mortem was carried out at Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar Government Hospital here.

The bodies of the security personnel are to be sent to their home towns and villages either by late evening Wednesday or Thursday.

The outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) has called for the two-day strike in Jharkhand, Bihar, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal.