Gadchiroli, October 09: In a brazen attack, Naxals today ambushed a police patrol party mercilessly gunning down seventeen policemen here, a day after Union Home Minister P Chidambaram gave a stern warning to the left-wing extremists to abjure violence or face action.
The policemen including a sub-inspector on patrol duty walked into an ambush set up by about 150-200 Naxals under the Laheri police station of the district, bordering Chhattisgarh, and were shot dead in an encounter that lasted over three hours.
The bloodbath comes two days after a Jharkhand police intelligence officer was beheaded by the Maoists in Ranchi district of the state.
The Gadchiroli attack took place a few hours before the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the national capital discussed the growing Naxal threat in various parts of the country and measures required to counter it.
–PTI