Click to play videoBhubaneswar/Hyderabad: Orissa government now fears that all 34 missing commandos of Andhra Pradesh's elite anti-Naxal force Greyhounds are dead after Sunday's attack at Balimela reservoir.
And the blame game between the two neighboring states has begun over the incident.
So far 14 bodies have been fished out and two commandos have been found injured in villages on the Orissa-Andhra border even as search operations are on for the last two days for the missing since Greyhounds personnel following the Naxal attack at Balimela reservoir in Orissa on Sunday.
Eighteen men are still missing and the Orissa government has given up hopes of finding them.
"We fear all the missing commandos are dead and it is still difficult to find all the dead bodies since the visibility is poor for the search operation," Tarun Kanti Mishra, Home Secretary, Orissa, says.
On the other hand, Andhra Pradesh Home Minister K Jana Reddy said, "The fact is that our police had gone there to help the Orissa police. As to what facilities were requested by our men and whether these facilities and safety measures were given to them or not by the Orissa government, we will know by tomorrow. Our DGP is enquiring into this."
Orissa blames the elite force for making the blunder of travelling together in such large numbers through a Naxal infested district.
The 66 Greyhound commandos travelled in a single boat in the early hours of Sunday morning on an anti-Naxal operation.
Police sources have told CNN-IBN that the boat in which the commandos were traveling was booked four days in advance.
The local people knew that commandos would be traveling by that boat. It is suspected that this information might have been leaked to the Naxals
Both states have ordered inquiries into the incident and Andhra Pradesh has said that if the bodies of the men are not found, it will be assumed that they're in the hands of the Naxals.
(With inputs from Sandhya Ravishankar)
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