Over 200 naxalites, belonging to the People's War Group, raided a mining camp of the aluminium major Hindalco in the neighbouring Chhattisgarh state and abducted four of its officials, besides setting ablaze the company's vehicles and documents and destroying buildings, the police said.
The attack on the Hindalco camp in the naxal-affected Surguja region started at 5.30 pm on Sunday and continued for more than six hours.
Tackling naxals is a formidable challenge for the state administration in all the 16 naxal-affected districts, as the naxals don't respect the Indian administrative system.
Hindalco Industries Limited, a flagship company of the Aditya Birla Group, is structured into two strategic businesses -- aluminium and copper -- and is an industry leader in both segments.
"To think that naxalites were the saviours of the downtrodden was looking at the issue merely at its surface. They just want others to subscribe to their ideology by spreading terror," opined officers associated with anti-naxal operations.
"About 17 gangs, mainly of the PWG, equipped with sophisticated weapons like AK-47 rifles, wireless sets and remote control devices, were reportedly active in Bastar, Dantewada, Dandori, Kanker, Rajnandgaon, Balaghat, Kawardha and Mandla districts," a police source said.
"Besides highly ill-equipped state police, lack of proper roads in most of the naxal-affected districts posed a major obstacle in the anti-naxal operation. The non-tarred roads were also making the police more vulnerable to landmine attacks by the naxalites," lamented a police official pleading anonymity.
As against 28 naxalites, as many as 98 cops, a dozen government employees and over 100 others have so far been killed in naxal-related violence in the past three years.
"In the present case, they first overpowered the security guards and some officials and asked them to use the company's bulldozers to raze the camp or be prepared to die. They forced the officials to raze to the ground the company's guest house, its mining monitoring office, at least seven staff quarters and the laboratory. Besides, they also set afire two Marshal jeeps, office furniture and documents," state Deputy Inspector General of Police (Intelligence) Sanjay Pillai said.
Pillai however said that further complete details were awaited as the police party is yet to come back from the site of incident.
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