RAIPUR: The Maoists who ambushed and killed 25 personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in Chhattisgarh 's Sukma district on Monday mutilated many of the bodies as well, sources said.As rescue parties went around the grim task of retrieving the bodies of the 25 personnel, they realised that the private parts of several had been cut off. Some of the personnel's throats had been slit, and the others' faces and heads smashed."We can only say that the bodies of several slain security personnel were mutilated after the ambush," a se nior officer said.The mutilation, the sources added, was apparently "a bid to shock security forces" as well as send a message to local tribals. It's unusual for Maoists to mutilate the bodies of their victims and, ac cording to sources in the police, the use of the tactic in this instance was meant as a message to the tribal population that they had avenged the alleged cases of rape and molestation by security personnel during counter insurgency operations. A senior police officer told TOI that Maoists had used the tactic once before, when they mutilated the bodies of cops killed in the attack on a Chhattisgarh Armed Force camp in Bijapur in 2007.A helicopter carrying CoBRA commandos on Wednesday crash-landed near a CRPF camp in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district resulting in minor injuries to five occupants. They said an inquiry is on to ascertain the reason behind the crash.Union minister and Pataliputra MP Ram Kripal Yadav said on Wednesday that a truck carrying the bodies of CRPF personnel killed in Sukma on Monday was stopped for around 15 minutes near the Patna airport on Tuesday evening to make way for Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar 's cavalcade. JD(U) spokesman Neeraj Kumar termed the allegation baseless.

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