I can never forget the early morning of 3rd September, 2008, when I had one of the closest encounters with the Maoists near a village school located on the top of the Rohtas-Kaimur Plateau.

This village named Soli was at a distance of about 10 kms from the Dhansa valley junction, where one reached on the plateau after travelling uphill on unmetalled road laden with probable landmines for about 22 kms from Rohtas Police Station downhill. In those days the road to Rohtas itself at a distance of 45 kms from the District Police Headquarters was in a pathetic state of disrepair, and consumed not less than 3 hours of body shaking journey by road. The next 22 kms of unmetalled forest road to Dhansa took about 30 minutes, and then the forest road took about 40 kms to reach Adhaura on the other side of the plateau, where one had access to metalled road and means of communication.

For about 40 kms from Dhansa to Adhaura, one was literally left with no communication even in 2008, since the wireless sets could not communicate with the district headquarters and further since there were no mobile towers in the hilly territory about 1500 feet above  sea level, which was also thus understood as a liberated zone by the Maoists. The only Police Station on the hills was at Adhaura reaching which from the side of Rohtas was not easy. We found a solution for communication using satellite phones during later operations on the hills, but on this morning we had none. The biggest weapon and strategy that we had was surprise, which I was quite confident to be safe.

To be continued.....