NEW DELHI: The home ministry announced cash reward for CRPF men who secured an Indian Air Force helicopter and rescued a state police wireless operator abandoned after crash landing in Maoist heartland at south Chhattisgarh's Timilwada.
The CRPF men involved in the rescue operations will get Rs 5 lakh from the MHA. The CRPF has already rewarded them Rs 1.5 lakh.
Last Friday, six IAF personnel left behind a light machine gun (LMG) and a pistol when they abandoned the injured Chhattisgarh policeman in the helicopter after Maoists fired at it.
The rebels had fired 19 bullets at the helicopter while it was descending near Timilwada camp of the Chhattisgarh Police to fly two policemen, injured in an encounter with rebels, to hospital. Sources said the chopper was hit by 7.62 mm bullets fired from factory-made automatic guns like self-loading rifle (SLR) and landed about two km from Timilwada camp.
It is a heavily forested area and a traditional stronghold of the Maoists in Chhattisgarh. With no inkling about the location of the chopper, CRPF officers first located forest clearings where choppers can land. Soon after, the CRPF and CoBRA men fanned out in the forests trying to locate the chopper.
"Such a large number of men on the ground seem to have deterred the Maoists from approaching the chopper," said an officer.
By 9.30pm on Saturday — four hours after it crash landed — the chopper was found and soon secured by the security forces, he said.
The Maoists had managed to hit choppers five times before around that area between Sukma and Dantewada districts of Chhattisgarh. "Except this time, in all the five cases the chopper could fly away to safety," said an officer.
Ahead of the Republic Day, the home ministry has alerted Maoist-hit states to step up security, especially, in the districts grappling with violence by the rebels. In Maoist parlance, it is called fake republic day. Going by past incidents, security agencies suspect Maoists may hoist black flags, desecrate the national flag and stoke violence in their strongholds in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, Odisha and Maharashtra. Maoists have directed schools in Jharkhand's Giridih and several districts of Chhattisgarh to boycott R-Day celebrations, said an MHA official. Security agencies fear Maoists could target railway tracks and blast IEDs to disrupt traffic on roads.
Rs 5 lakh MHA reward for CRPF to secure IAF chopper and rescue Chhattisgarh cop
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Rs 5 lakh MHA reward for CRPF to secure IAF chopper and rescue Chhattisgarh cop
