The May 1 blasts set off by naxals in Gadchiroli that killed 16 people, of which 15 were cops, have forced senior IPS officers to go back to the drawing board to figure out what the lapses in their Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) were. Cops are puzzled about how, when usage of IEDs by naxals had been curtailed in naxal-dominated areas of Gadchiroli since 2016, it was used again to carry out Wednesday's devastating attack.

A senior IPS officer, who has worked extensively in the naxal area during his tenure, said, "Naxal activities and attacks were well under control in the last couple of years (from 2015 till 2018-end). It is just of late that they are once again making attempts to attack the men in uniform and disrupt infrastructure projects. We need to find the loophole in our SOPs. Recently, a large cache of explosives was recovered by the police. But, the Wednesday massacre is a matter of concern, and we will need to fix the problem and neutralise the naxals."