By IANS,
Raipur : In two separate incidents a para-military trooper of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) was killed in a landmine blast while three Maoist guerrillas were gunned down in an encounter with police Sunday in Chhattisgarh’s restive Bastar region, officials said.
Pawan Deo, deputy inspector general at the police headquarters here said that a CRPF trooper was killed and another District Force (DF) personnel injured in a landmine blast in a forested stretch of Bijapur district between Bhopalpattanam-Mander, some 500 km south of capital Raipur.
The officer added that a joint team of CRPF and DF shot dead three armed militants at a thickly forested hamlet called Sarandi in Kanker district in an hour-long gunbattle with a group of some 40 armed Maoists. The gunbattle site is located about 280 km south of capital Raipur.
The Maoists have called for a boycott of the polls in the state. Chhattisgarh goes to polls for 11 Lok Sabha seats April 16.
The rebels killed 10 CRPF men including a deputy commandant in Dantewada district in an ambush April 10.