Red storm: 2 hrs that shook Bihar

JEHANABAD:It was the night the state withered away in Jehanabad. Slogans on lips, guns andbombs in hand, nearly a thousand Maoist guerrillas ran over the town withamazing ease and opened up the jail to free their comrades. At last count, thedeath toll from Sunday���s assault stood at seven people and nine otherswere killed on Monday.In a war-like siege, which spoke of meticulousplanning and smacked of a collossal intelligence failure the Red cadres, armedwith information that most policemen were on election duty, cut off power andthen roamed around announcing blatantly through a public address system thatthey were here. An embattled and cowering administration could onlygawk at the charge of the Red brigade and talk about it in hushed tones later.LeavingJehanabad rattled, the Maoists also freed their area commander Ajay Kanu andtook away with them some Ranvir Sena members. Reports said at least nine RanvirSena members were killed later. Up to 40 Ranvir Sena members could have beendragged away from prison, Union home secretary V N Duggal said. Moving to helpthe terrorised Bihar police, the Centre decided to rush nearly 1,000 additionalpara-military personnel, besides deploying two helicopters for airsurveillance.The fury of the attack on the upper caste army, oftenblamed for perpetrating heinous outrages on low caste supporters of Naxals,raised fears of a caste retaliation.Some pamphlets left at the sitespoke of social injustice. "Poor and petty criminals are rotting in jail whilethe bigger ones are roaming outside," it said.Theoperation itself began at 9.15 pm and had Maoists swarming the jail premisesfrom both the north and south ends. On barging into the jail, the extremistsimmediately killed jail warden Durga Rajak.The attackers knew justwhat they had to do ��� in fact, they were so certain that the wholeoperation looked rehearsed. As soon as the jail locks were broken, they freedtheir own, dragging out Ranvir Sena leaders and supporters. One of them, BadeSharma, was shot dead on the spot.