Twenty-four policemen were taken as hostages. The insurgents took away besides arms and ammunition, communication sets and foodstuffs from the post. Rukum district, as could be seen from the list of incidents has been having regular incidents and yet the Police were unprepared for a major assault. No help could come for the poor policemen though the attack lasted the whole night and a few hours the next morning. Closely following this incident another serious attack took place in Dailekh District where 29 police officers were massacred.
Full details are yet to be received on the latter incident.
When we discussed about Maoist menace two years ago, some analysts felt that we were exaggerating the issue and that most of the insurgent incidents were isolated robberies and had nothing to do with any organised or committed armed groups. They should now read our updates and all the incidents relating to Maoists we had catalogued. The insurgents have become more daring, more resourceful and have started employing classic guerilla warfare tactics in laying ambushes, in creating a minor incident and then attacking the police parties coming to the rescue and holding open mass meetings for hours in populated places. On February 12, in Syangja the district headquarters, the Maoists conducted an open mass meeting for three hours and then exploded a bomb. Syangja incidentally has a large concentration of Indian ex servicemen.