By IANS,
Raipur : Hours before polling is set to begin in Chhattisgarh, Maoists militants ambushed a polling team Wednesday in the restive Bastar region, inflicting serious injuries to a member of the polling staff and a special police officer (SPO), officials said.
Police say the incident that took place in a remote forested hamlet in Narayanpur district, some 325 km from Raipur, is basically a planned move by guerillas to enforce their poll boycott call.
“The polling staff and the SPO are very critical. They have been airlifted to Raipur and admitted to the Ramkrishna Care Hospital late Wednesday evening,” Girdhari Nayak, state’s additional director general of police, told IANS.
Nayak said insurgents had also tried to ambush a Border Security Force (BSF) team in a remote pocket between Gollapalli and Kishtaram in Dantewada district, some 500 km from here, but the BSF men effectively countered the rebels.
Voting for state’s 11 seats will begin 7 a.m. Thursday.