At Nalco mine’s Ground Zero,story of CISF courage and fear

Eleven CISF personnel were killed in that Naxal raid on Sunday night. Speaking to personnel stationed there,The Indian Express has learnt that a small group of CISF jawans put up a brave fight for more than nine hours and foiled what could have been the most daring Naxal raid here.

The Naxalites,many of them women,descended on the bauxite mine around 9.30 pm Sunday,the first wave making it to one of the five watchtowers of the CISF magazine and ordering the jawans to surrender. Their target: two rooms full of a massive stockpile of industrial explosives and a truckload of explosives from the CISF magazine.

CISF jawans Salim Khan,Dharam Singh and Devinder Prasad opened fire,forcing the Naxalites to retreat but soon a second group of Naxals had advanced to the house where the explosives were stacked. The Naxalites hurled bombs,killing jawans Barun Parmanik,Bidhan Majhi and A C Pradhan. They seized the light machine gun in the magazine and used it to fire at the jawans. They also killed jawan Lalit Kumar,blowing him up with a grenade after tying his hands.

As his men fought and fell,Khan,who had taken position on a watchtower at the entrance,kept firing from an LMG. By then,10 of his colleagues had been killed. Singh and Prasad,using night-vision devices,joined Khan,firing from their automatics.

“The jawans were outstanding. Despite no fortification of the magazine and fighting from a ragtag building,they showed their guts,” said DIG Sanjeeb Panda.

Though Parmanik’s death demoralised the 26 jawans in the magazine unit,they held their nerve. As more and more Naxalites joined in,the jawans kept in touch with each other and their commandants through cellphones. “We knew no reinforcements would come until morning as the Naxals had placed landmines on the 20-km Damanjodi-Panchpatmali road at 19 places. They had even blocked the road by cutting trees,” said a jawan.

Sensing an opportunity,one of the women Naxals ran to the main magazine watchtower to blast the structure. But Santosh S,a jawan from Delhi,shot her dead from his watchtower post.

Two kilometres away,some 80 mine employees were waiting for a bus to return home at the end of their night shift. “When the bus did not arrive at 9.45 pm,I got worried. Then I got a call from our shift-in-charge that the area has been taken over by Naxals. As soon as I hung up,the Naxals came out of nowhere and marched us into the canteen. They switched off the lights and snatched our phones. We were freed only in the morning,” said an employee who did not wish to be named.

Fear still stalks the bauxite mines which remained shut for the third day today despite Nalco efforts to persuade employees to return to work. “I would rather resign than work again at the mines. I will never forget that night,” an employee said. All four Nalco employees unions today demanded that the area be cleared of landmines before work can resume.

But with polls scheduled tomorrow,the clearing could take a while.