“This is where it happened,” a tribal boy (14) said, showing a vast opening in dense forest, 5 km from Chintalnar village (District Dantewada) in South Bastar. The spot is known for the biggest Maoist attack on security forces on April 6.

The scars of gruesome “U-shaped ambush” and massacre of 75 men of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) are still visible here.

Bullet holes in tree trunks and small craters caused by hand grenades in half-a-km long and 1.5 km wide “killing field” can be seen everywhere. From Dantewada, Chintalnar is 166 km via small jungles roads passing through Sukma, Dornapal and Chintagufa.

For the Maoists,’ the three-hour fierce battle was “a red letter day.” The Chintalnar area is the ‘capital’ of their Dandekaran State (Red Corridor). For the CRPF, it will remain the darkest chapter in their nearly 60-years of post-Independence history. Though the force came into existence as Crown Representative’s Police in 1939, it never experienced such a beating.The Tribune investigated this incident, which is now become a subject of study in jungle warfare training schools.

Subsequent incidents indicate that the Maoists can easily teach the men in khaki a few tricks.

Reluctantly, the tribal guide had agreed to walk with this correspondent on a small badly damaged road from Chintalnar tribal village of 1,500 people, including about 10 Thakur families, who settled here from western Uttar Pradesh over a century ago. Inside, there is a highly fortified police station with jittery guards in a ready-to-shoot position.

No one at the police station agreed to accompany this correspondent to the spot where Maoists sprayed bullets, threw hand grenades and Molotov cocktails (petrol bombs) after encircling the unsuspecting patrol party of 81 CRPF men and a lone trooper of the state police. Only seven CRPF jawans survived. The Maoists had slit the throat of many seriously injured jawans. In broken Hindi, our guide said, “Us din bahut patake chale.” (Thatday, lots of firework took place). I was very frightened…on the previous night, I had shaken hands with some of the cops.”

On both sides of the barren “killing field” (area 17662 sq mts), one could see thick Tadmetla forest and hills beyond the tree-line.

The Maoists had taken position on both sides and also in the front of the CRPF men’s approach. From Chintalnar, the road to Chintagufa (18 km) branches off at a distance of 4.5 km towards the spot where this deadly ambush occurred.

The CRPF jawans did fight back but they proved to be “sitting ducks.” The Naxals had mined all the routes. Our guide said, “I had never seen so many dead men earlier.” The CRPF was hit again: on May 8, about eight men were killed in Bijapur district. On June 29, the Maoists killed 26 jawans in two ambushes in Dhoudai in Naryayanpur district.

The harsh words of Chhattisgarh Director General of police Vishwa Ranjan (“If the CRPF is frequently getting caught in ambush, can we do anything? Can we teach them how to walk in the jungles?”) soured the relations between the CRPF and the state police. A senior CRPF officer said, “The local cops are mixed up with the Naxalities. To stay alive, they pay them money…otherwise, why are only the CRPF men are being targeted?…”

The case study of the Chintalnar incident reveals the Maoists’ military tactics. Around 4 pm, the CRPF party had moved again from Chintalnar towards the same location where it camped on the previous day, while going towards Tarmetla village.

At 5.50 pm, the CRPF party came under Naxalities’ fire. Reinforcements sent from Chintalnar, Chintagupha (18 km) and Dornapal (55 km) were intercepted by the Naxals. When they reached the spot around 9.30 pm, only seven out of 81 CRPF men were alive.

A high-level inquiry has revealed that the CRPF group did not follow the basics of standard operational procedures. They could not anticipate the possible points of ambush ahead, did not change its field formation, and could not out-manoeuvre the attack. The movement of the CRPF party was fully exposed. The CRPF jawans made a blunder by staying at the same place on the previous day, where the ambush took place.