By Sahar Khan, Feb 12, 2012-The wife of a senior police officer critically wounded in a landmine blast, has alleged that the Chhattisgarh Police ‘forced’ her husband to remain in a Maoist-hit area for 10 years because they could not pay up for a transfer. Additional superintendent of police D.S. Marawi‘s wife Radha lashed out at senior officers for not heeding her husband’s pleas seeking transfer out of the Maoistshit areas because he did not pay a bribe. Two constables were killed and three others were wounded including the ASP in a blast triggered by Maoists in Sukma district on Thursday. The injured were air-lifted to Raipur from Bastar for medical treatment.

‘He (Marawi) had twice written to higher authorities seeking transfer but no one listened. We don’t have “illegally earned” money and since we couldn’t pay he remained deployed in the Maoists stronghold for 10 years,’ Radha said pointing fingers at police officers responsible for transfer of police personnel in the state.

Tears welling in her eyes sitting outside the intensive care unit of Ram Krishna Care Hospital where her husband is admitted she recollected how her children always insisted their father not venture into the interior areas and seek a transfer to a secure place since he is on Maoists’ hit list.

‘This is his third miraculous escape from a attack by the Maoists,’ she said.

‘It is ridiculous to blame the transparent transfer process and policy. These are undertaken in accordance with the rules and at the government level,’ said Ram Niwas, additional director general of police (anti-Maoist operation).

Admitting that Marawi had sought a transfer the ADG said he was given a safer position equivalent to a commandant of armed police training centre in Bastar.

‘He was not deployed on the field. Rather what surprised us was his choice to follow a risky route and visit Polampalli from Dornapal, a known Maoist hotbed, by road instead of using the chopper to return in the evening,’ Ram Niwas said.

A senior officer based in Bastar stated that Marawi’s decision itself becomes a matter of investigation since it led to the death of two policemen.

Marawi was reportedly called by a visiting team of CBI in Dantewada to depose before it in connection with the attack on activist Swami Agnivesh by a mob in March 2011.

After the blast the guerrillas opened firing on the jeep in which Marawi was travelling with the police team. But top police officers rubbished the allegation.