Jamshedpur: Armed MCC (Maoist Communist Centre) cadres ambushed a convoy killing 18 policemen and wounding 20 others in the dense Saranda forest at Bitkilsoya in West Singhbum district of Jharkhand, bordering Orissa on December 19.

The DIG Orissa, (Western Range) Sunil Roy told on December 20 from Rourkela that the MCC gunned down 18 Jharkhand policemen and wounded 20 others before looting arms and ammunition and setting ablaze 11 vehicles in the convoy in the forest falling under the Manoharpur police station area.

According to reports from Manoharpur and Kiriburu police stations in West Singhbhum district, the MCC cadres numbering seventy opened fire when about 50 policemen were returning with the body of a village headman killed earlier by ultras.

Manoharpur, the nearest police station, was the first to be alerted by a policeman wounded in the wrists after he managed to escape from the MCC gunfire.

A Rourkela report quoting DGP, Orissa, Nimai Charan Padhi, said that 15 of the injured Jharkhand policemen were admitted to the Ispat General Hospital with grenade and bullet wounds.

Ten of the policemen were in a critical condition, he said.

The DIG (Western Range) Sunil Roy and Sundergarh superintendent of police, Y K Jethwa have rushed to ambush spot 15 kilometres inside Jharkhand with one company of the Orissa armed police, he said.

Padhi said that casualties had also occurred on the MCC side, but no detail was available, they said.

PTI