A CRPF official was killed in a blast during an anti-Naxal operation at the Odisha-Jharkhand border on Saturday morning, officials said.
ASI Satyaban Kumar Singh (34) of 134th CRPF battalion, who hailed from Kushinagar in UP, was part of a team that was searching the Saranda forest at the inter-state border for explosives robbed by Maoists from a stone quarry on May 27, they said.
He sustained injuries on his left leg when an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded around 6 am near the K Balang village in Odisha’s Sundergarh district, they said.
He was taken to a hospital in Rourkela, where he succumbed to the injuries, officials said.
The search operation was being conducted by a joint team of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Special Operations Group (SOG) of Odisha Police.
About 5 ton of explosives were robbed from a stone quarry in Sundergar’s Banko by Maoists. While three-fourths of the explosives have been recovered so far, the security forces continue their search for the remaining gelatin packets, officials said.