By IANS,
Raipur : A senior police officer who is recovering at a hospital here from a bullet injury he received in a Maoist ambush last week, said Monday he wanted to return to the battleground soon to fight Maoists more aggressively.
“I will fight the Maoists more aggressively, that is for sure. I am not among those people who get scared and frightened,” B.S. Marawi, additional superintendent of police (ASP) of Chhattisgarh’s troubled Sukma district in the Bastar region, told a team of reporters in a brief talk.
Marawi has been posted for a decade in the Bastar region, a Maoist stronghold since the late 1980s. He received bullet injuries Feb 9 when Maoists ambushed a vehicle carrying six policemen in a forested area. Two policemen were killed on the spot while others sustained injuries.
Marawi has been admitted to the Ramkrishna Care Hospital and doctors say he needs several weeks to recover from his injuries. Marawi has been declared an “enemy” by the Maoists as he led several successful operations against rebels in the Bastar region, which is made up of seven districts and has an area of roughly 40,000 sq km.
Marawi said, “Those who think I will leave the battleground after the recent attack are mistaken. I like being in the jungles of Bastar, fighting Maoists who have killed dozens of innocent people and policemen.”
He termed as an “emotional outburst” his wife Radha’s statement that her husband remained posted in the Maoist-affected belt for over a decade because he could not pay bribe to his seniors. She made the statement Saturday while Marawi was airlifted from Sukma to Raipur and brought to a hospital in the capital city for advanced treatment.