Twelve paramilitary troopers were killed and 11 injured when their vehicle hit a landmine planted by Maoist rebels in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, news reports said yesterday.
The troopers were killed on Saturday evening in a forested area of Tongapal in Dantewada district, about 500km south of the state capital Raipur, IANS and PTI news agencies reported.
A 40-member squad of the Central Reserve Police Force and district police was returning to base camp after searching for Maoist rebels, police said.
The victims were traveling in a truck which hit the landmine. Seven men died on the spot and four on their way to hospital, TJ Longkumer, inspector general of police, said.
“One more succumbed to injuries midnight at the hospital where 11 men were rushed in a critical condition,” Longkumer said.
He said the toll could go up as some policemen were still missing.
“We have rushed extra police forces to the attack site,” Longkumer said.
The police team was returning from a village in the Tongepal area after receiving information that the Maoist rebels had set fire to some trucks used in road construction.
An unnamed local police official was quoted as saying rebels burned the trucks to lure the soldiers into an ambush in Bastar area of the Dantewada forests.
Chhattisgarh police estimate that roughly 10,000 rebels operate in the southern part of the state that includes Dantewada and Bijapur districts.
Maoists guerrillas operate in 13 of India’s 29 states. The Bastar region, which has a large tribal population and poor development, is one of their strongholds, authorities say.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indonesia’s Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki yesterday erupted again with giant ash and smoke plumes after forcing evacuations of villages and flight cancelations, including to and from the resort island of Bali. Several eruptions sent ash up to 5km into the sky on Tuesday evening to yesterday afternoon. An eruption on Tuesday afternoon sent thick, gray clouds 10km into the sky that expanded into a mushroom-shaped ash cloud visible as much as 150km kilometers away. The eruption alert was raised on Tuesday to the highest level and the danger zone where people are recommended to leave was expanded to 8km from the crater. Officers also
RSS