Naxalites set ablaze houses in Bastar

Dantewara, Chhattisgarh, July 17: Naxalites have reportedly abducted scores of villagers and also set ablaze nearly 300 houses after storming the Erabor relief camp, killing 20 people and maiming 150 others in the wee hours this morning.

Preliminary reports said a group of armed Peoples' Liberation Gurrellia Army (PLGA) militia of CPI(Maoist) cordoned off the Erabor relief camp and opened indiscriminate firing.

More than 5,000 villagers, who had deserted their villages following threat from the naxal, were put up at the government-run relief camps where they were being provided food and shelter for the last one year.

Reports reaching at Bastar divisional headquarters Jagdalpur said armed naxals had set ablaze nearly 300 houses during the raid and abducted scores of villagers and took them to nearby forests.

Police said CRPF personnel, stationed near the relief camp, and the police force deployed there had opened retaliatory fire, resulting in an encounter.

Additional security forces, including from the para-military, had been rushed to the remote Erabor village, located at about 130 km from Dantewara district headquarters.

Besides, an army helicopter is expected to reach the village to airlift the injured people to the hospitals, either in the state capital or to Badrachalam in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, official sources said.

Meanwhile, a Police Headquarters spokesman in state capital confirmed deaths of ten villages in the early morning naxalite raid at Erabor relief camp. The details about actual number of casualties and the number of injured were not immediately available.

The spokesman said senior police and administrative officials had rushed to the spot and steps were taken to provide first aid to the injured villagers.

Moreover, the para-military forces had launched combing operation in the nearby forests to flush out the naxalite cadres.

UNI