Naxals torch two buses in Chhattisgarh; passengers unhurt

Raipur: Naxals torched a private travel bus in Chhattisgarh’s insurgency-hit Sukma district, after asking its passengers to alight, police said on Tuesday. [caption id=“attachment_1431915” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. PTI[/caption] Rebels also fired upon an anti-landmine vehicle in which security forces had rushed to the spot to rescue the passengers. However, no one was hurt in the incident, they said. The incident occurred on Monday night near restive Tahakwada village on NH-30 under Tongpal Police Station limits, a short distance from the spot where 15 security men and a civilian were killed in a Maoist ambush in April last year, a senior police official told PTI. The bus was heading to Hyderabad from Jagdalpur (Bastar’s district headquarter) when it was attacked. Around 50 cadres, most of them armed, surrounded the bus in a thickly forested patch near Tahakwada and asked the passengers to get down before setting it ablaze, he said. Subsequently, security forces were rushed to the spot in a Mine-Protected Vehicle keeping in view the sensitivity of the region. Near Tahakwada, naxals fired few rounds on the MPV but soon fled from the spot as the back-up forces reached there and launched retaliatory action, he said. Later, the evacuated passengers were sent to their destinations in other buses, the official said. On Monday afternoon, a government-run passenger bus too was torched by naxals in neighbouring Dantewada district. PTI