New Delhi: The Maharashtra Police Wednesday gunned down a dozen suspected Maoists, including several thought to be key leaders with a total reward of Rs 85 lakh on their heads, in an encounter that went on for six hours at the state’s border with Chhattisgarh.
Two personnel of the Chhattisgarh Special Task Force (STF), also on the lookout for Maoists in the region, succumbed to injuries inflicted in an improvised explosive device (IED) blast triggered by the rebels.
The encounter broke out in the afternoon in Gadchiroli’s Wandoli village along the border with Chhattisgarh’s Kanker district, while the security forces suffered losses in a forest around Mandimarka village in the state’s Bijapur district around 10 pm.
According to the Gadchiroli police, who identified those killed, three of the suspected Maoists had a reward of Rs 16 lakh each on their head, while five had a reward of Rs 6 lakh each.
The two deceased personnel of the Chhattisgarh STF have been identified as constable Bharat Sahu, who belonged to capital Raipur, and constable Satyer Singh Kange, of Narayanpur district.
Gadchiroli Superintendent of Police Neelotpal said in a statement that three senior Maoist cadres of the rank of DVCM (divisional committee member), five ACMs (area committee member) and four members of the Permili Dalam formation of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army had been eliminated in the encounter, and the north Gadchiroli zone was now clear of armed Maoist formations.
He further said that since 2021, Gadchiroli police had neutralised 80 Maoists and arrested 102, while 29 had surrendered.
Also Read: NIA raids put focus on Maoism in UP. How Red tide rose until 2-pronged strategy brought it down
‘Six-hour gun battle, 2,000 rounds fired’
According to SP Neelotpal, an anti-Naxalite operation was launched around noon Wednesday based on a credible intelligence input that at least 12 Maoists were camping in the forests around Wandoli village.
Based on the input and the possibility of a cluster of Maoists in one area, a team of seven units of C-60 commandos under deputy SP (operations) Vishal Nagargoje was sent for the operation.
The Gadchiroli police had in 1990 established the C-60 unit to take on the Maoists with jungle warfare skills and sophisticated weapons.
Police officials in Gadchiroli told ThePrint that C-60 troops are equipped with an advanced version of the Russian assault rifle AK-103, along with head-mounted night vision devices and thermal imagers that can detect human presence even in the dark.
When the C-60 commandos were carrying out the searches, according to the SP, they were shot at by Maoists, which led to a fierce exchange of fire that lasted approximately six hours and saw 2,000 rounds of bullets being spent by the elite troops.
The police later retrieved and identified the bodies of seven male and five female Maoists.
Vishal Kulle Atram, Yogesh Davsingh Tulavi and Pramod Lalsay Kachlami were the top three targets of the commandos as all three had Rs 16 lakh rewards on their heads.
The police said that Vishal Kulle was a DVCM and in-charge of the joint local organisation squad in the Korchi-Tipagad area and had 78 criminal cases against him. Pramod Lalsay, said to be another DVCM, was in-charge of the Tipagad area and had 58 cases against him.
Yogesh Davsingh, who had 67 cases against his name, was also a DVCM and was heading the local organisation squad in the Chatgaon-Kasansur areas of the district, the police added.
Three of the five women Maoists killed in the encounter were from the Bastar and Maad areas in neighbouring Chhattisgarh, according to the list of dead Maoists prepared by the Gadchiroli police.
The police also recovered 11 firearms, including seven automatic weapons such as AK-47s, INSAS, carbines and SLRs, along with a large number of explosives and detonators from the spot of the encounter.
Two C-60 commandos suffered bullet injuries in the operation and their condition is said to be stable at a Nagpur hospital.
‘IED blast in forests of Bijapur’
Around the time when the C-60 commandos of the Gadchiroli police might have been winding up their operation, a search party comprising the Chhattisgarh District Reserve Guard, STF and Central Reserve Police Force was returning from tri-junction of Bijapur, Dantewada and Sukma in the state.
The forces from all three districts were in search of Maoists belonging to the West Bastar division of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army, of which they had been receiving intelligence inputs, sources in the Chhattisgarh Police said.
However, as they were crossing the forest in Tarrem police circle in Bijapur district, they came in contact with an IED that killed two constables while four others were injured.
“Nearly three kilometres above Tarrem police station, in a forest nearby Mandimarka village, an IED explosion led to the casualties. Search parties carried both the dead and injured to the base camp and they were shifted to Bijapur hospital by road,” a source in the Chhattisgarh Police told ThePrint.
Terming the region a “core” area of Maoists, another source in the state police said that West Bastar had always been a hotbed of Maoism.
“Maoists have worked here since their childhood. They operate in a coordinated manner without any people in uniform. Their civil team digs the ground to install IEDs but they keep them unwired and inactive. They ask their civil cadre to connect the wires as soon as they receive inputs of movement of troops,” the second police source said.
“Maoists from the West Bastar region generally account for a significant number in any anti-Naxalite operation,” the first source said.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
Also Read: 29 Maoists killed in Kanker ambush—What India must do to prevent their replacement