IED blast in poll bound Chhattisgarh, security stepped up

Raipur, Nov 10: A day before the first phase of assembly elections in

, an IED blast rocked the Aundhi village of the poll-bound state on Sunday evening.

According to reports, one security personnel got injured as IED blast took place in Aundhi village.

The blast took place 125 kilometers from the district headquarters where the police party was moving ahead of polls. The blast has taken off despite police security near polling booths and now the security has been beefed up in the entire region even further.

With the Naxal-hit Bastar region going for Assembly polls on Monday, security forces have been directed to sanitise school buildings and other premises to be used for polling in hyper-sensitive areas.

The other precautionary orders given to security forces, particularly to those who have arrived from other states for conducting polls, are not to venture in the forest areas in search of mobile phone signals and to go to washrooms with security cover, a senior police official said on condition of anonymity.

One security personnel got injured as IED blast took place in Aundhi village.

Maoists can take advantage of such a situation to launch an attack on police personnel, as they have did in the past, he said. Security forces have been strictly instructed to conduct de-mining exercise inside school premises being used for polling before entering there, the official said.

"Not only the ground but walls and blackboards in schools are also to be checked as Intelligence Bureau has tipped off that IEDs could be planted anywhere," he said. Several other general instructions are also issued to them as a precautionary measure, he said.

The paramilitary personnel, who have arrived from other states, are not very well versed in counter-insurgency operations and unaware of the critical situation in the Maoist-hotbed of Bastar.

Therefore, such instructions are required, he said. As many as 18 constituencies of Naxal-affected Bastar region and Rajnandgaon district will go to polls in the first phase of state Assembly elections tomorrow.

Taking a serious note of the Maoists threat, over a lakh security personnel have been deployed for conducting peaceful polling in the region.

OneIndia News