Terror grips NMDC miners a day after Maoist attack

Raipur, May 14 (IANS) Dozens of miners at the public sector National Mining Development Corp (NMDC) Ltd. in Chhattisgarh skipped work Monday as more explosives were found at the mining site in Dantewada where rebels had killed six paramilitary troopers and a civilian Sunday night.

Officials here at police headquarters said that a police team found live bombs Monday near the attack site at Kirandul area of the district.

Speculation was rife that Maoists had planned more deadly strikes at the facilities of the NMDC that has several iron ore mines at the Kirandul and its adjoining Bacheli areas that form a vast Bailadila hills which has roughly one-fifth of India's total known iron ore reserves.

Reports coming in from Kirandul, some 420 km south from Raipur, said that dozens of miners employed by the NMDC Ltd, skipped work in morning shift while work only returned to normalcy in afternoon and evening shift when Chhattisgarh Police and the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel intensified patrolling.

Six CISF troopers were killed in the attack.