Maoists blast school building

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Source: The Hindu (http://www.hinduonnet.com/2010/05/03/stories/2010050354840300.htm)
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Maoists blast school building


Staff Reporter


BERHAMPUR: Maoists blasted rooms of a residential school for tribal girls at Dhepaguda in Narayanpatna block of Koraput district in Orissa on Saturday night.
Koraput Superintendent of Police Anup Sahu said no one was injured during the incident. Security personnel rushed to the area to investigate and search for the miscreants, he said. Maoists resorted to this act to show up their protest against the proposed major joint operation to be taken up in the area. The building of the school was their target as they alleged that the school building was to be utilised as camp for the security forces. But no security personnel camped in the school during the attack.
Sources say a group of armed Maoists, comprising female cadres, reached the residential school premises at around 9.30 p.m. They ordered the staff and students present in the hostel of the school to vacate the campus. Later, they planted explosives inside the rooms of the school and blasted them from a distance through a switching device connected through wires. Eyewitnesses say there were three blasts.
Roads blocked
The SP said the blasts did not make any major damage to the building. But the furniture of the school was damaged in the blast.
The irony was that the incident occurred at distance of two km from a camp of Border Security Force (BSF) in Narayanpatna block. Till now, the presence of paramilitary forces has not made any major impact on the activities of naxals and their frontal organisations, which are active in the area. Two major roads leading to Narayanpatna from Bandhugaon and Laxmipur remain blocked since a week. The Maoists had dug up the road and used cut down trees to block the Narayanpatna-Laxmipur road near Palur. They damaged a culvert by a blast on the Narayanpatna-Bandhugaon road. Now Narayanpatna can only be reached by a road via Damanjodi. The Maoists have also disrupted telecommunication services in Narayanpatna block. No telecommunication facility is available in most parts of the area. Maoists in the past have dug up communication cables and damaged mobile communication towers for it.






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