During the past year, the trend of planting IEDs next to posters put up by Maoists has increased. The TTP is common in Maoist areas of activity in eastern India, such as Chhattisgarh, Telangana and especially Odisha.
The idea is for the poster to be used as bait to lure security forces toward an IED scene. Security personnel are the main target of the Maoists, so when they attempt to remove the poster, the IED planted next to it initiates. In some cases, security forces were injured in such attacks, but in other incidents documented in the past year and previously, innocent civilians were also killed and injured. Since Maoist posters are so common in their areas of activity, and not all are used to lure victims to a proximate IED scene, it is difficult to know/identify when it is an innocent poster whose purpose is to convey a message and when it is a poster with an IED planted next to it. This trend is expected to increase and continue to pose a great danger to security forces, as well as innocent civilians, who have already been affected by it.
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