Eight polling officials, including 5 policemen, killed in Maoist attack in Dumka

Dumka, Jharkhand: Eight members of a polling team, including five jawans of the Jharkhand police, were killed this evening when a bus carrying them was blown off after hitting a landmine allegedly planted by the Maoists near Asnajore village in the Shikaripara police station of Jharkhand's Dumka district.

The team was returning to Dumka after conducting polls. The bus, according to Jharkhand police spokesman Anurag Gupta, was completely destroyed in the blast, which left another 12 jawans of the state police injured.

This is the second deadly attack executed by suspected Maoists after the commencement of the staggered, nine-phase polling for the Lok Sabha elections, and the first in Jharkhand. On April 12, as many as 13 people, including poll officials and CRPF jawans, were killed in two Maoist strikes in Chhattisgarh. The attacks took place when security and poll officials had just finished their work.

The first attack took place in Darbha Valley in Sukma district where the Naxals blew up an ambulance using Improvised Explosive device (IED). Five CRPF jawans were killed and six others were injured. A technician in the ambulance, who was seriously hurt in the attack, succumbed to his injuries next morning.

The second attack took place less than an hour later and 160 km away in Bijapur, where another IED blast by the Maoists blew up the bus in which the poll officials were returning. Five poll officials, the bus driver and its cleaner were killed while three others were injured.

Polling in Jharkhand had remained peaceful till now, despite boycott threats by the Maoists. The state went through three phases of polling, with the first taking place on April 10, and the second a week later. There are 14 parliamentary constituencies in the state.

Dumka was among the four parliamentary constituencies in Jharkhand which went to polls today. The other three constituencies are Rajmahal, Godda and Dhanbad.