India - Maoists dispute police version on Sukma attack

Maoists dispute police version on Sukma attack
Claiming responsibility for Sukma attack, Maoists say none of its cadre died in the gun battle.
Police had claimed they killed 20 Maoists. The outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) on Monday took the responsibility of the attack on the Special Task Force (STF) in Sukma district of South Chhattisgarh on April 11, which resulted in the killing of seven STF men and left 10 others grievously injured. In a press statement issued by its South Bastar Divisional Committee, the banned outfit also refuted Chhattisgarh police’s claims that 20 Maoists were killed in the encounter.
“The STF wanted to mount an attack on our PLGA (People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army) on April 11 in Pidmed village of Sukma, however, exactly opposite happened on the ground. Our guerrillas killed seven STF men and chased away the rest of them,” said the press release. “Not a single Maoist was killed in Pidmed encounter. Some of us received minor injuries, but everyone is battle ready now. Senior police officers are claiming that they killed 20 Maoists in Pidmed but the fact is that the STF men had to run for their lives for more than 10 kilometres towards Kankerlanka village,” claimed the Maoists. R.K.Vij, the Additional Director General (ADG) of police in charge of the STF, had termed the Pidmed encounter “among the greatest battles” his men ever fought and claimed that around 20 Maoists were killed by the STF. Calling the police claims as “false propaganda”, the Maoists said that the “daring” attack on the STF has discouraged the policemen posted in Bastar.
“The police propaganda is only to lift their men’s moral which is at all-time low after the Pidmed attack. We never shy away from accepting casualties on our part. The last rites of our deceased comrades are performed as per the revolutionary traditions and in full public view,” informed the banned outfit adding that every PLGA martyr is provided “revolutionary funeral.” The Maoist press statement appealed to the police jawans fighting in Bastar to “stop attacking poor public” and “surrender before the revolution rather than being in the fear of death.” In another press statement issued by Sukhdev Konde, the secretary of the North Bastar Divisional Committee of the CPI (Maoist), the Maoists termed the attack on the BSF camp on April 12 in Chhote Betiya village of Kanker district as an “audacious attack”.

“The attack on BSF camp in Chhote Betiya was in response to the government’s plan to put up a carpet of camps across Bastar. Sixteen new camps have come up in Bastar in last six months. But the main aim of this plan is to snatch water, land and forests from the Tribals,” said Mr.Konde while admitting that Maoist leader Dasmen Salam alias Vikas was killed in the attack, which also resulted in the death of a BSF head constabl