NEW DELHI: The 15 security personnel who were injured — one fatally — in a series of landmine blasts in Giridih, Jharkhand on Monday had, perhaps, walked into a trap laid by Naxalites despite taking all precautions.Sources said the jawans — on an operation to rescue four government officials kidnapped by Naxalites on Saturday — took the most difficult and less-trodden path thinking Naxalites would never imagine forces taking the route. But the ultras were a step ahead and mined the same route. “It was either a case of Naxalites thinking ahead of the forces or they had prior intelligence of troop movement. Either way, they got the better of the forces this time,” said an official from the anti-Naxalite security establishment.The home ministry fears the whole kidnapping episode (of low-level entitlement scheme workers by the Maoists) may have been a plot to draw out the counter-Naxalite security forces on a possible search operation and then target them with landmines. “The hostages were not high-value targets. Also, there were no demands made by the Naxalites for freeing the hostages. This indicates that the purpose was essentially to lay a trap for the forces to launch a search operation, giving the Maoists an opportunity to set off landmines along their route,” a home ministry official told TOI.According to sources in the CRPF, whose 11 jawans were injured and one died in the incident, intelligence inputs suggested that the officials had been kept in a hideout in the Madhuban jungles of Parasnath Hill, a famous Jain pilgrimage site, in Giridih. Accordingly, a contingent of around 80 personnel from CRPF and Jharkhand Jaguars was sent towards Dolkata in the foothills of Parasnath from where they had to go uphill.“It’s a difficult hill to climb and one is forced to use some or the other trail. The jawans took the most difficult one to avoid landmines but were still ambushed as bullets followed the blasts. The entire area was heavily mined with manually triggered bombs,” said an official privy to operational details.However, the home ministry is happy that despite the losses, security personnel secured the release of the kidnapped officials. “It made the search operation worth the risk. The ends justified the means,” an MHA official said.