Pulwama attack second worst attack on CRPF after 2010 Dantewada blast

A landmine explosion was set off by Maoists in April 2010, in which 75 CRPF personnel were martyred.

A picture from the blast site.

New Delhi: The deadly terror attack on Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) convoy in Kashmir’s Pulwama that shook India to its core on Thursday,  is the second biggest attack on the paramilitary force, since the Dantewada attacks,  reports said. The attack targeting the CRPF is the second worst for the force in the last nine years. Prior to this, an even intense attack took place in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada in the year 2010. The attack had occurred when over 80 officers from the central paramilitary force and a local police group were conducting an area domination exercise in the Bastar tribal region of the Indian state of Chhattisgarh. A landmine explosion was set off by Maoists in April 2010, in which 75 CRPF personnel were martyred. Thursday’s incident was claimed by terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed, which stated that it was a suicide attack. The explosion took place when a van carrying explosives rammed into a bus of the convoy on the Jammu Srinagar highway, claiming lives of 39 personnel. The attack is also the most deadly terror strikes in the state since the Uri attack in 2016. More than 2,500 Central Reserve Police Force personnel, many of them returning from leave to rejoin duty in the Valley, were travelling in the convoy of 78 vehicles when they were ambushed on the Srinagar-Jammu highway at Latoomode in Awantipora in south Kashmir around 3.15 pm.