10kg IED recovered by women commandos in Chhattisgarh

Raipur: Women commandos of the District Reserve Guard (DRG) on Tuesday recovered a powerful 10-kg improvised explosive device (IED), planted by Maoists, in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district and later defused it, a police official said.

The explosive, packed in a pressure cooker, was unearthed from a dirt track between Surnaar and Team villages under Katekalyan police station limits by a team of Danteshwari fighters during an operation, Dantewada Superintendent of Police Abhishek Pallava told PTI.

Danteshwari fighters in the women’s wing of the DRG, the state’s anti-Naxal force, in Dantewada.

Acting on a specific input provided by local villagers, women commandos, who are trained in disposing IEDs along with jungle warfare tactics, had launched the operation during which they detected the explosive planted beneath the dirt route along farmland, he said.

They deactivated the IED at the spot, Pallava said, claiming it was one of the first cases in which an explosive device was detected and defused by women personnel.

Naxals had planted the explosive to target security forces who often use the route during anti-Maoist operations, the IPS officer added.