NEW DELHI – Two Border Security Force (BSF) personnel were killed in an IEDblast triggered by Naxals in Kanker district of Chhattisgarh today whenthey were patrolling the area on a motorcycle, police said.

The incident took place at around 5 pm in the forest of Tadbauli villageunder Chhotebethiya police station limits when a team of the BSF’s 121battalion was out on an area domination operation on motorcycles, DeputyInspector General of Police (Anti-Naxal Operation) Sundarraj P told PTIover the phone.

When the team was passing through a dirt track near Tadbauli, about 7kmfrom the BSF’s Marbeda camp, the motorcycle was blown away in the blastcarried out by the Naxals using an improvised explosive device (IED) hiddenunderground, he said.

The jawans were seriously injured and died while being taken out of theforest, the DIG added. They were identified as Santosh Laxman and VijayNand Nayak, both natives of Karnataka, the IPS officer said. Soon aftergetting information about the blast, reinforcement was rushed to spot,located 300km from the state capital Raipur, he said. A search operationhas been launched to trace the Naxals involved in the attack, Sundarrajadded.