Chhattisgarh anti-Maoist op poorly designed: Rahul Gandhi

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday alleged that the operation against Maoists in Chhattisgarh, in which 22 security personnel were killed, was "incompetently" executed and "poorly designed".

"Our jawans are not cannon fodder to be martyred at will," Gandhi said on Twitter and demanded that each Indian jawan be given body armour for protection. Out of the 22 fatalities in the Saturday Maoist attack in the state, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) lost eight men, including seven CoBRA commandos, while one jawan is from the Bastariya battalion, eight from the DRG and five from the Special Task Force.

Body armour "needs to be made available to every soldier," he said. Citing a media report quoting CRPF Director General Kuldeep Singh as saying there was no intelligence failure in the operation and an equal number of ultras were killed, Gandhi said, "If there was no intelligence failure then a 1:1 death ratio means it was a poorly designed and incompetently executed operation."

Meanwhile, Telangana police have sounded an alert and intensified combing operations in the bordering areas of the state in view of the Chhattisgarh attack.

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