BOKARO - In a repeat of Friday’s violence, maoists killed at least 11 policemen and injured eight others in an attack at Nawadih and Fushro areas in Jharkhand’s Bokaro district on Saturday afternoon.

According to Bokaro Superintendent of Police, L. P. Singh, two policemen were killed at Fushro in an encounter during an abortive attempt by the ultras to rob a bank while nine police sleuths were killed at Nawadih, when an anti-landmine vehicle, carrying additional force to Fushro, was blown up.

Over 50 Maoists, including women, who were waiting near the State Bank of India branch at Fushro bazar, fired on two members of the police escort party, when the latter emerged from the bank after depositing the money.

Though two police escorts giving protection to the bank employees ferrying money from another branch died on the spot, others continued encounter with Maoists, who fled the spot having failed to loot the bank.

The Maoists also blew up an anti-landmine vehicle at Sarubeda between Nawadih and Bermo killing nine Special Auxiliary Force (SAF) personnel and wounding four others, the SP informed.

The SAF men were being rushed to Fushro, about 30 km from Nawadih, as reinforcement at the encounter site.

Six of them died on the spot, two on way to Bokaro General Hospital and one succumbed during treatment.

The vehicle blew up when it was over a culvert which had a powerful landmine planted underneath, Singh said.

Asked how so many people died despite it being an anti-landmine vehicle, a top police officer pleading anonymity said possibly its doors were not properly closed.

Saturday’s attack was the eighth on the police by Maoists in Jharkhand this year with the last one being on Wednesday when 11 securitymen had lost their lives in a landmine blast in West Singhbhum district. (ANI)