Fifteen persons, including 13 policemen, were killed in a stunning siege of three police stations in Nayagarh district headquarters, barely 90 km from the state capital, by Maoists here on Friday night.

Catching the cops off guard, a large contingent of armed Maoists raided the Nayagarh police station and looted the armoury at about 10.30 pm while another group stormed the police training school, opening fire and hurling bombs. After taking control of the police station, they fanned out in the town. At the same time, another group barged into the Daspalla and Nuagaon police stations and went on a rampage.

According to the police, a civilian (a suspected police informer) and a village guard were among those killed in the cross-firing.

There were no casualty reports from the Maoists’ side.

Police sources said the radicals also forced the locals to switch off the lights and stay indoors. While retreating from Nayagarh, they also attacked a small police outpost at Gallery village in Ganjam district.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who toured the town immediately, announced an ex gratia of Rs 10 lakh each to the kin of the killed policemen and Rs 2 lakh each to close relatives of the civilians killed. Later in a statement, he said about 500 Maoists carried out the attacks, and the police had launched a massive combing operation to catch them.

The Maoist misadventure has come amid the rising concern about the expanding “red corridor” in Orissa, putting a question mark over police preparedness. While Director General of Police Gopal Chandra Nanda said the police had made elaborate arrangements to check the Naxalite menace and “we are being careful”, a senior police officer in a Naxalite-infested district, requesting anonymity, contradicted his top boss. He admitted that the Orissa Police were ill-equipped to deal with the menace unlike their counterparts in Andhra Pradesh or Maharashtra. “There is a need for fortification of police force in the Naxalite-hit states, especially in Orissa. The Centre should also adopt a holistic approach and come up with some concrete plan as it did to counter terror in Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.

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