17 dead as Maoists target Cong, VC Shukla critical

May 25: Maoists today ambushed a Congress convoy in Chhattisgarh and killed at least 17 people, including Salwa Judum founder Mahendra Karma, and critically injured former Union minister Vidya Charan Shukla. Some 500 rebels are said to have launched the afternoon mine-and-bullet attack in south Bastar’s Darbha valley, about 400km from Raipur, outnumbering and outgunning the police security guards during a two-hour forest battle. Former Congress MLA Uday Mudaliar was killed while sitting MLA Kawasi Lakhma was critical with a bullet in the head. State Congress chief Nand Kumar Patel and his son Dinesh are missing amid suspicion that the rebels may have kidnapped them. The Prime Minister and an “astounded and shocked” Sonia Gandhi will visit Chhattisgarh tomorrow while Rahul Gandhi has already left for the state, PTI reported. The convoy of 20-odd vehicles was returning from Sukma to Jagdalpur after one leg of the Parivartan Yatra, launched a month ago ahead of the state polls, due in November. “The Maoists detonated mines and opened indiscriminate fire,” a senior police officer said. Karma, a former state leader of the Opposition, was the Congress’s tallest tribal leader in Chhattisgarh. As founder of the now-defunct anti-Maoist vigilante group Salwa Judum, accused of atrocities on the tribals, he had long been on the Maoists’ hit list. A senior Congress leader who survived the attack told The Telegraph that Karma had surrendered to the Maoists when his security guard ran out of ammunition. “The rebels took him to one side and pumped bullets into him,” he added. Reports said Karma was riddled with more than 50 bullets. Shukla, 83, once the most powerful politician in Chhattisgarh, is said to have taken three bullets, two of them in the back. The Prime Minister spoke to chief minister Raman Singh after an emergency meeting at his residence and offered all possible help. Former chief minister Ajit Jogi, who pulled out of the Yatra because of poor health, sobbed while condemning the incident. He blamed it on a security lapse by the BJP government and demanded its ouster. “There weren’t sufficient security personnel to escort the Congress leaders,” he said, claiming that more than 3,000 jawans had been deployed for the chief minister’s Vikas Yatra, also opposed by the rebels. The Centre is unlikely to take any drastic measure against the state government so close to the Assembly polls. The Congress would not want to take on itself the onus of controlling the situation when the incident has exposed the BJP government’s failure. In Raipur, Congress workers marched towards Raj Bhavan and the chief minister’s residence to gherao them but the police foiled the plan. The dead include five policemen and a woman tribal leader, Phulo Devi Netam, police said. More than 100 party workers and leaders were in the convoy, which was passing through dense forests on a slender highway flanked by hills, cut off from any communication network. Sources said the Maoists had put up roadblocks by felling trees before triggering a landmine blast that hit one of the vehicles. After the attack, they allegedly set nearby trees on fire. “This was a major security lapse,” a senior Chhattisgarh officer told this newspaper, adding that the roads had not been sanitised. “How could so many party leaders and workers travel in the convoy together through this stretch?” The attack came a day before the Maoists’ Dandakaranya bandh in protest at the police killing eight villagers in Edasmetta last week “by mistake”. The army has been called in and the Centre is sending reinforcements.