BHOPAL: Security forces went into a tizzy in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh on Thursday when two claymore mines were detected in the jungles of the Maoist-affected Balaghat district earlier this week.
The Black Hawk force of the state police discovered the mines during road opening and search operations in the jungles under the Malajkhand police station area a few kilometres away from the Chhattisgarh border.
According to the Superintendent of Police, Balaghat district, Jayadevan A, the two mines were wrapped in a plastic bag and stashed. This the second time in eight months that mines have been detected in the district, which shares its borders with both Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra. Two mines had been detected in March this year.
Heightened Maoist attacks, which claimed the lives of several security personnel, was reported over the last few weeks in Chhattisgarh where Assembly polls were held on November 12 and 20.
Meanwhile, in an unrelated development, Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate Anubha Munjare was arrested in a 2013 case of poll code violation from the Lalbarra area.
Munjare who had lost from Balaghat seat to sitting MLA and state’s agriculture minister Gourishankar Bisen by just over 2,500 votes in 2013 was arrested just a few hours before SP national president and ex-UP chief minister Akhilesh Yadav addressed a public rally in support in party candidates, including Anubha’s husband Kankar Munjare (Paraswada seat) on Wednesday.
“Arresting my party candidate just a week before the polls in a five-year-old case amply shows that the BJP government in MP is nervous and sensing a sure defeat in Balaghat and adjoining seats,” Yadav said while addressing the public rally. Police sources in Balaghat, however, denied any political motive behind the arrest, saying that a local court had issued the warrant recently.
In another political development in the adjoining Waraseoni constituency (also forming part of Balaghat district), Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan met with rebel leader Gaurav Pardhi. Pardhi later accompanied the CM to a party rally where he announced that he would back the party’s official candidate and sitting MLA Dr Yogendra Nirmal.