New Delhi: An Additional Superintendent of Police rank officer of the Chhattisgarh Police was killed Monday in an improvised explosive device (IED) attack triggered by the Maoists in Sukma district, officials told ThePrint.
The officer, Akash Rao Girepunje, was grievously injured near Dhondra, a village adjacent to the National Highway-30 in Konta subdivision of Sukma in the southern part of the Bastar division.
Sources in the Chhattisgarh Police said that the incident took place when Girepunje, along with other officers including the Town Inspector (TI) and Sub Inspector (SI), were patrolling the area on foot where Maoists had set a JCB machine on fire.
Bastar Range Inspector General of Police Sundarraj Pattilingam said that the blast was triggered by a pressure IED on the Konta–Errabore road when a team led by Girepunje was patrolling to prevent any Maoist-related incident ahead of the 10 June bandh call given by the Communist Party of India (Maoist) to protest the deaths of several of its senior cadre, including general secretary Nambala Keshava Rao alias Basavaraju, in encounters.
From the state police service, Girepunje (42) joined the service in 2013 as a DySP and was awarded the Police Gallantry Medal by then President Ram Nath Kovind in January 2019 when he held the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police.
This is the second death due to an IED blast in less than a month. On 22 May, a jawan of the District Reserve Guard from neighbouring Bijapur was killed in an explosion while returning from an operation.
On 6 January, the DRG were crossing Bijapur’s Kutru forest area with the body of one of their own when an IED exploded, killing nine people, including eight DRG jawans.
Data collated by the Bastar range police shows that there were at least six IED blasts in Sukma last year, while security forces were able to detect and defuse 95 of them. Overall, there were 52 IED blasts in the Bastar region in 2024, while 309 of them were detected and safely defused.
In February, ThePrint had reported how IEDs have become the most potent weapon for Maoists in the fight against security forces, which has become an overwhelming duel for them in the recent past.
“When we lose our personnel in exchange for fire, troops accept it as an occupational hazard. Losing men to IEDs that cause death and dismemberment has a serious demoralising impact,” a senior official had told ThePrint.
Edited by Viny Mishra
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