‘Seat belts would have saved cops’

There is strength in numbers when security personnel go out on anti-Naxal operations. But this week, 17 policemen died in Malkangiri because there were too many of them. Many of them could have survived the landmine blast, had they buckled up their seat belts in the Mine-Protected Vehicle (MPV).

Senior security officials in Delhi said the policemen had died of injuries to their spine, neck and head sustained due to the impact when the explosives blew up the vehicle into the air.

“Many lives would have been saved if they had used the seat belts,” said an official at the Ordinance Factory at Medak, Andhra Pradesh, which manufactured the mine protected vehicle. The Ordinance factory officials will go to Orissa tomorrow to examine the vehicle to determine how the armoured vehicle performed.