'Setting up security camps in remote areas to be speeded up'

Raipur: Maoists are "frustrated" because security camps have been set up in remote areas of Chhattisgarh and this process will be speeded up now to launch more serious operations against them, CRPF Director General Kuldiep Singh said here on Sunday after at least 22 security personnel were killed in fresh bloodletting.

The Central Reserve Police Force chief, who arrived in the state capital in the wake of the ambush by Naxals in Bijapur on Saturday that also left more than 30 personnel injured, said that "lessons are learnt" from every incident and they will see and analyse "what changes have been brought by the Naxals" to effectively counter them.

Singh said the Maoists are frustrated and troubled because of the induction of five new battalions in the Bastar region of the state recently and the creation of new bases in remote areas like Basaguda, Silger, Jagargunda and Minpa.

"They (Naxals) think that if they mount heavy casualties on us they can deter us and we may not establish new camps.

"But this does not happen...there have been many casualties in the past too... and as per government policy the force keeps moving forward," he said.

The DG asserted that the new camps "will be established and now this process will be made fast so that we can launch more serious operations against the Naxals."

"We keep changing our strategy and it is an evolving process," he said. A contingent of 1,500 personnel drawn from six security camps launched the cordon and search operation against Naxals along Bijapur-Sukma border around the crack of dawn on Saturday. The ambush took place around noon that day.

"The Maoists fired from some country-made under-barrel grenade launchers (UBGLs) at a party that was returning from Jogagundam after an operation."