New Delhi: The Chhattisgarh Police Friday killed at least a dozen suspected Maoists, including four women, in an encounter near Pedia village in Bijapur district, officials in the state police said.
Exchange of fire started around 6 am Friday and lasted till 4 pm in the jurisdiction of the Gangaloor police station that comes under West Bastar division, officials in the know told ThePrint.
They further said that exchange of fire began after personnel of the District Reserve Guard (DRG), Special Task Force (STF), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and its Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (COBRA) were on the lookout for the Maoists’ West Bastar division leader Maoist Papa Rao, based on intelligence inputs.
The Additional Director General of Chhattisgarh Police for anti-Naxalite operations, Vivekanand Sinha, told ThePrint that Friday’s encounter was the fourth such action by security forces in the last few months, leaving casualties on the Maoists’ side in excess of 50 and which has come “as a crushing blow to Naxalism in the state”.
Security forces have been on an offensive this year, eliminating more than 100 suspected Maoists so far in Chhattisgarh, compared to only 30 last year.
Friday’s encounter was the fourth major operation in the Bastar range, considered a hotbed for Maoists, and took place just a few kilometres from the place where security forces had killed 10 suspected Maoists last month.
On 30 April, the forces killed 10 alleged Maoists including three women in Abujmarh forest under Narayanpur district, while just a fortnight prior to that, the forces had carried out the biggest assault against Maoists in Chhattisgarh by eliminating 29 of their leaders in the same forest under Kanker district police jurisdiction.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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