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RAIPUR: An eight-year-old tribal girl and her mother were severely injured in a Maoist IED explosion in an inaccessible forest village in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh’s Bastar division last week, but Maoists have been preventing medical help from reaching them.
Injured late Friday, the mother and child have been in desperate need of treatment for nearly five days, but they are still stuck in a Maoist camp near Tungalvaya Palnar village that is barricaded by the Naxals, who insist that they are ‘treating’ the duo.Sources said the child, identified as Sunita Hemla, is in critical condition. Her mother is also badly hurt but stable.
Cops have been trying to reach the village in Gangaloor region, close to the Telangana border and a hotbed of insurgency. The Maoist unit that seeks to control the region is particularly notorious for targeting civilians and off-duty policemen.
Sunita and her mother were returning from the weekly market when the child stepped on a pressure IED planted by Maoists to target security personnel. The schoolgirl took the brunt of the explosion. They were only a few hundred metres from their home.
Villagers carried the injured duo home. When the Maoists learnt of this, they forcibly took the girl and her mother to their own ‘medical camp’ and blocked the entry of outsiders into the village to prevent information from spreading.
It took four days for the news to trickle out. Sunita, a class 3 student, did not show up at the ‘porta cabin school’ (run by government in remote areas) for days. Her teachers started making inquiries and learnt of their suffering.
A police official said they were trying to get in touch with the locals.
Injured late Friday, the mother and child have been in desperate need of treatment for nearly five days, but they are still stuck in a Maoist camp near Tungalvaya Palnar village that is barricaded by the Naxals, who insist that they are ‘treating’ the duo.Sources said the child, identified as Sunita Hemla, is in critical condition. Her mother is also badly hurt but stable.
Cops have been trying to reach the village in Gangaloor region, close to the Telangana border and a hotbed of insurgency. The Maoist unit that seeks to control the region is particularly notorious for targeting civilians and off-duty policemen.
Sunita and her mother were returning from the weekly market when the child stepped on a pressure IED planted by Maoists to target security personnel. The schoolgirl took the brunt of the explosion. They were only a few hundred metres from their home.
Villagers carried the injured duo home. When the Maoists learnt of this, they forcibly took the girl and her mother to their own ‘medical camp’ and blocked the entry of outsiders into the village to prevent information from spreading.
It took four days for the news to trickle out. Sunita, a class 3 student, did not show up at the ‘porta cabin school’ (run by government in remote areas) for days. Her teachers started making inquiries and learnt of their suffering.
A police official said they were trying to get in touch with the locals.
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