Fight against Naxals will be intensified, asserts Amit Shah
New Delhi: A day after a senior official denied "intelligence failure" after 22 security personnel were killed in an ambush in the state's Bastar region, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said anti-Maoist operation in Chhattisgarh was "poorly designed and incompetently executed."
Hitting out at the Centre, Rahul Gandhi said: "Our jawans are not cannon fodder to be martyred at will."
"If there was no intelligence failure then a 1:1 death ratio means it was a poorly designed and incompetently executed operation," the Congress leader tweeted tagging a news clipping of CRPF DG Kuldiep Singh's "no operational and intelligence failure" remark.
Meanwhile, in a stern message to Maoists, Union Home minister Amit Shah, who chaired a high-level review meeting in Chhattisgarh's Jagdalpur on Left Wing Extremism (LWE) situation, said: "The fight against ultras will be intensified to end the Naxal menace. The sacrifices of the security personnel will always be remembered for taking this battle to a 'decisive turn'." "I want to assure the country that this fight will not be stopped, rather it will continue with more intensity till the end. In this fight, our victory is definite in the end," Shah said, adding that in the last few years, the fight against Naxals has reached a decisive turn and this unfortunate incident has taken the fight two steps ahead.
At the review meeting Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, senior officials of the state police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were also present.
After attending the wreath-laying ceremony to pay homage to the security personnel who lost their lives in the Naxal attack, Shah said he paid tributes to the martyred personnel on behalf of the country, the government of India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Out of the total 22 fatalities, the CRPF lost eight men, including seven commandos of the CoBRA (CRPF's elite unit) and one jawan of the Bastariya battalion, eight of the other deceased were from the District Reserve Guard (DRG) and six from the Special Task Force (STF). As per officials, one jawan is still missing.
