A 31-year-old CRPF jawan, Prabhakar Sahani, suffered a leg injury sustained during a blast from an IED planted by the Maoists at Barkela-Chidiyabera forest area in Chaibasa of West Singhbhum district in Jharkhand.

Deputy inspector general (Kolhan) Ajay Linda confirmed the injury during a search operation.

“The CRPF jawan was injured during a blast by a pressure IED planted by Maoists owing allegiance to Misir Besra (carrying Rs 1 crore prize money on his head). This happened on Saturday morning while the security forces were undertaking a search operation in the forest area. The injured jawan was airlifted to a private hospital in Ranchi for better treatment and is stated to be stable,” said Linda.

The DIG further said that security forces are continuing the search operation with extreme caution.

“The Maoists have planted pressure IEDs in different parts of the forest area. Recently, a villager was also killed accidentally due to an IED blast. We are continuing with the search operation with extreme caution. This is the last shelter of Maoists as we have eliminated them from Saranda, Porahat and Seraikela-West Singbhum tri-junction and we are confident of driving them out from here too soon,” the DIG said.