india

Updated: Mar 13, 2014 01:49 IST

Vowing to take revenge against Tuesday’s Maoist attack which killed 15 security personnel and a civilian, Union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde said the National Investigation Agency (NIA) would probe the attack.

Shinde was talking to media persons at Jagdalpur after he along with governor Shekhar Dutt and chief minister Raman Singh paid tributes to the slain security personnel at the police ground in Bastar.

“We will take revenge”, the home minister said as he affirmed “there was no specific intelligence input about the attack”.

After arriving in Raipur on Wednesday, Shinde had a short meeting with the CM and state home minister Ram Sewak Paikra before leaving for Jagdalpur in the morning.

“NIA will probe the attack. This is a cowardly act of the Maoists who are frightened and on the backfoot now. The Lok Sabha polls will be held peacefully as was seen during the assembly elections in Chhattisgarh”, he told media persons.

Meanwhile, the state unit of the Congress has called for a bandh on Friday. Also, state PCC president Bhupesh Baghel has demanded a resignation from the CM.

“The state government has failed to curb the Maoist violence. In Raman raj it has spread to cover two-third of the state”, he charged and asked why no RSS cadre or leader has ever been killed by Maoists. “It’s both an intelligence and an operational failure”, former chief minister Ajit Jogi asserted.

The operations meanwhile have been intensified in surrounding areas. A high alert has been sounded across the Bastar zone and the adjoining areas of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and MP.

“We are pursuing strong follow-up action. Forces have been pressed into extensive search operations”, the ADG (anti-Maoist operation) R K Vij told HT.