'Deeply sorry' if innocents shot in Chhattisgarh: PC

Union Home Minister P Chidamabaram today defended the CRPF's role in last week's Chhattisgarh encounter but said he was "deeply sorry" if any innocent villager had been killed.

Referring to the possibility of villagers being killed in the operation, Chidambaram said he was "deeply sorry if any girl, or boy or man or woman not involved with the Maoists at all has been killed".

However, he said the role of the CRPF was "transparent" and "upfront".

The Union Home Ministry also announced it would be sending one more battalion of the CRPF to Chhattisgarh for anti-Naxal operations. The CRPF has said it would "reconstruct the entire encounter site" at Sarkiguda to iron out the possibility of errors in operations in the future.

"The CRPF DG has said he has nothing to hide, nothing to fear... I do not think any central force has been so transparent. I am not going into the political controversies. I am the Home Minister and the CRPF is under me. We have been absolutely candid, frank and upfront," said Chidambaram after a Cabinet meeting. CRPF DG K Vijaykumar had earlier briefed Chidambaram on the encounter.

The minister added that it was for the Chhattisgarh government to decide whether they wanted an inquiry or not.

A senior CRPF officer reiterated that they hadn't "gone wrong anywhere" in the way the operation was carried out. "We will reconstruct the scene of operation to figure out future strategies. As far as our analysis is concerned, we have not gone wrong anywhere... We were fired at first and (retaliated). We had planned this operation well in advance and were waiting for a full-moon night because we could not use any kind of light during the operation and had to depend on whatever little light we could get," the officer said.

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