An exclusive account of the final moments of the CRPF’s A and G companies which were wiped out by Maoists in Dantewada on April 6, 2010. Based on detailed interviews of three of the seven survivors currently in a hospital in Raipur.
Dawn had just begun breaking over the cool dry jungle
of Dantewada when the column of 81 CRPF men along
with one local head constable was walking in a single file over a hillock and towards a one hectare fallow field, lined with bunds and trees. The troopers were wearing camouflage
fatigues and, strangely,white sneakers bought in Raipur because the regular CRPF issue boots were unfit for long marches. The men had established a base camp three km away from Chintalnar village and had begun ‘area domination’ patrols
in the Mukrana forest. They had two night halts where they cooked a dal and rice khichdi for themselves.
It was their second day in the Maoist stronghold but the enemy
was elusive. The villagers that they came across didn’t tell them anything useful. It didn’t matter even if they did. The troopers did not understand the Gondi dialect spoken by the tribals; they left that to their local liaison, Head Constable Sushil Kumar Deepak. Ramesh Kumar Singh, part of the column’s Quick
Reaction Team (QRT) comprising of 12 men, cradled his INSASrifle and pulled out his mobile phone. There
was no signal so he was using it as a clock. It was 5.50 a.m. They had been marching for nearly three hours. For some reason the QRT,supposed to be at the head of the column acting as scouts, had fallen behind. “I’m going to the front to get our orders,” Assistant Commandant B.L. Meena said and walked ahead to the head of the column where the leader,
Deputy Commandant Satyawan Singh, was. Meena had gone just 20 metres when the first pft pft pft bursts of fire came directly from the front. “Take positions, take posi-
tions,” Satyawan Singh’s voice rang out. The company broke up and split into small groups and fanned out to left and right, rifles pointing towards their assailants.
“It’s a hit-and-run. They will go away. It happened like this in
Kashmir,” thought Biplab Malakar,a lanky first division fast bowler from Barrackpore in West Bengal, as he took position behind a 2-ft high bund around the field. Five years ago,militants in Jammu and Kashmir had shot and killed his friend, another constable, Pradeep Sikdar. It occurred to Biplab that the Naxals were using INSAS rifles—the very rifles the CRPF troopers were using to desperately defend themselves—to
shoot at him. Biplab had a deeper as- sociation—he used to make these weapons during a two-month long
summer job at the Rifle Factory in Ishapore a decade ago.
Soon the fire began from the flanks, and seemingly from above.
The black uniform-clad Maoists were firing from behind the dark- ened silhouettes of the trees. Bullets rang over their heads with a crack as they broke the sound barrier. Biplab was huddled near the bund with a fellow policemen H.K. Malik when a grenade flew in and exploded, blowing Malik’s leg away. Five bullets hit Biplab on the back and blood
poured out soaking his battle fatigues. He passed out.
Arvind Kumar, meanwhile, went down on the ground, fired
his AK-47 and crawled—the standard drill to evade bullets. But
the ground offered no cover. The men were being scythed down
in groups as they lay prone. It soon became clear why. “Ped se fire aa rahi hain(they are firing from the trees),” Havaldar Major Ram Kumar Meena screamed as two Maoist light machine guns began thumping deadly fire from atop trees over 100 metres away.
Explosions from IEDs rent the air and smoke wafted across the field. Arvind’s AK-47 ran out of ammunition.
“Take my magazines. I can’t fire,” a dying Sub-Inspector B.K. Sharma offered him two AK-47 magazines. As the battle raged, the Maoists were shouting tactical instructions to each other. “Deepak, idhar se ghero, (surround them from here).” It was a sight that was both terrifying and surreal. There were hundreds of tribal villagers around the field. They were screaming in Gondi, waving sticks and spears. It was like a royal shikaar which had converged onto a single killing field. It seemed like over a thousand people were firing though the Maoists claim they were only 300. “If I’m going to die, I’m going to try and take as many of them,” Arvind thought as he and a few others began blasting away at the trees. He saw at least one of the Maoists falling off.
Then the firing came in from a small hillock towards the rear of the company. Arvind had attracted the deadly attention of
their ambushers. A second grenade was flung towards him and it exploded near him. Three bullets hit him on the back. He
collapsed on his rifle. It was like the Maoists anticipated how the CRPF would react when ambushed. The field had
turned into a killing box ringed with automatic weapons. It was a Roman colosseum. There was no retreat for these dying gladiators. In the firefight, which lasted for over three hours, the CRPF men were clinically finished off. And all that happened right in front of their own ‘countrymen’. The last thing the survivors remember is seeing sari-clad tribal women moving in
and stripping the bodies of their fallen comrades of their weapons. Only seven men survived to tell this tale, one that would haunt them for the rest of their lives.
--Sandeep Unnithan (India Today, April 26, 2010)
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