Poll team in Chhattisgarh evacuated to safety

, Apr 11: A 20-member poll team, perched atop a hillock in

's Naxal-hit Sukma district, was evacuated by security forces today through coordinated action, including deploying Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.

The poll officials, who were on election duties yesterday, had to cancel their return to Sukma district headquarters last night after facing heavy firing from Naxals. A strong contingent of paramilitary personnel, which was guarding the poll officials, ensured their safety and stayed put the night at the interior location, official sources said.

Authorities deployed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to monitor the movement of Maoists

Concerned over their safety, the authority deployed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to monitor the movement of Maoists and kept relaying information and instructions to the team for their evacuation. After the well-coordinated efforts, authorities evacuated the polling officials and security personnel to a safe place in the morning, sources said.

Sources said there was enough intelligence to suggest that Naxals would ambush the poll team during its return. CRPF chief Dilip Trivedi, who is incharge of deployment of all security forces during the elections process, had yesterday said conclusion of polls in the "most difficult" areas gives him a sense of relief but not without the grief of losing his men who laid down their lives in the line of duty.

So far CPR has lost five of its men while 12 were injured. A number of Naxal-hit seats of Bihar, Odisha, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh went to poll yesterday and there were no large scale attacks or violence except in Bihar where two CRPF personnel were killed while in other states incidents of firing and landmine recoveries took place.

In Chhattisgarh, a state police official was injured in a Naxal attack while a number of homemade bombs were recovered in Kondagaon district of the state.

PTI