Over 100 rebels of the banned CPI (Maoist) blew up at least a dozen buildings of the forest department in West Singhbhum in the wee hours of Sunday after holding nearly 20 forest officials captive and manhandling them for over three hours, police said.

The incident occurred at Barkella locality under Mufassil police station, around 60km from the district headquarters of Chaibasa. Armed rebels snatched mobile phones of forest officials, thrashed them and then used IEDs and cylinder bombs to blow up around 12 buildings, including residential ones, over a period of three hours, West Singhbhum SP Indrajit Mahtha said.

“Around 100 rebels entered the forest department’s area at around 12am. They held the 20-odd forest officials captive and blew up buildings of the forest department till 3am,” said Mahtha, adding that the rebels pasted a poster at the site of crime demanding that the government grant forest dwellers’ rights to them.

As per data with the Union home ministry, West Singhbhum is among the 19 LWE-affected districts in Jharkhand. Besides the CPI (Maoist), there are at least 17 splinter outfits active in the tribal state, police said.

“The rebels have had their differences with forest officials. The Forest Act already gives rights to forest dwellers over forests and their produce. The Maoists are following a misconstrued ideology,” said Mahtha.

Incidents of LWE violence have been on the rise in Jharkhand since the imposition of lockdown. On May 31, Lakhinder Singh Munda, bodyguard of ASP of Chakradharpur Nathu Singh Meena, lost his life along with village chowkidar Sunder Mahto during an encounter with rebels.

Sometime in May, the Peoples Liberation Front of India (PLFI), another LWE outfit in Jharkhand, had reportedly chopped the ears of two villagers at Porahat after they refused to support them, police said.

The outlawed CPI (Maoist) – the oldest and the most dreaded LWE group in Jharkhand – has also been planting pressure IEDs to target security forces in rural areas, police said. Their move, however, is causing civilian casualties as the IEDs are easily triggered by the body weight of villagers who go to forests to gather wood, they added.