The news of loss of a precious life in the encounter came as a great shock to the forces who had recently felt very encouraged after gains at the Soli encounter. As the Guard of Honour was being laid in the Police Line, the anger and feeling of revenge in the eyes of the Force was quite visible. The Hills which had seen a recent success at Soli had taken another life. A solution needed to be found to somehow end the conflict which was continuously consuming lives. The clear resolve was that the area in the Maoist control had to be reclaimed as a part of the mainstream, but it needed good leadership with courage and wits. Moreover it needed a change in strategy in which nothing had to be left to chance. I thus resolved to plan staying for days together on the hills along with my forces in order to make it clear to the hostile enemy that this time it was not going to be easy.

They would be pursued and would pay the price of harming the peace of the region. All necessary arrangements including devices for communication, back up support and emergency evacuation needed to be accounted for in the new operational strategy. A change of operational strategy was also accentuated since any vehicular movement on the Hills could not maintain the desired surprise for long in view of the long distances to be covered. The Maoists were also now more prepared for vehicular movements and they could not be afforded without a corresponding domination of the area on foot.  In the following days several strategies were discussed with Senior Officers including the then IG, Operations, then DIG, Shahabad and other senior officers from the CRPF.

To be continued....