Chhattisgarh: Three more bodies of Maoists found after gunfight; toll rises to 13
The incident is the biggest blow for Maoists since 2019 when seven Maoists were gunned down by security forces in the forest close to the Odisha border in the Bastar district
Bastar: Three more bodies of Maoists were found on Wednesday morning in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district, where a gunfight had taken place between security forces and the ultras a day ago, police said. With this, the number of Maoists killed in the gunfight on Tuesday has risen to 13, said police.
The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Chhattisgarh Police on Tuesday gunned down 10 Maoists in the Bijapur district, taking the number of insurgents killed thus far this year to 47, up from 22 in all of 2023.
The fierce gunfight started near the Kendra-Korcholi jungles under the Gangaloor police station – a Communist Party of India (Maoist) controlled area – around 6am when a joint team of security personnel was out on an anti-naxal operation, according to officials.
Officials said that acting on specific inputs, the operation was launched on Monday evening from four security camps.
Officials said that they received intelligence of a gathering of Maoist cadre on Monday following which around 3000 security personnel from multiple agencies — the Chhattisgarh Police’s District Reserve Guard and Special Task Force, the Central Reserve Police Force and its elite guerilla unit Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (COBRA) were deployed from the Gangaloor, Cherpal, Basaguda, Palnar, Pusnar and Mudvendi camps in the district.
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The incident is the biggest blow for Maoists since 2019 when seven Maoists were gunned down by security forces in the forest close to the Odisha border in the Bastar district.
In Tuesday’s operation, the police also recovered one Light Machine Gun (LMG), one .303 rifle, one 12-bore gun, and a large number of barrel grenade launchers. Several arms and ammunition were also seized from the spot, according to officials.
So far, 47 Maoists have been killed since December 2023 in separate gunfights with security forces in the Maoist-dominated Bastar region, comprising seven districts including Bijapur, according to police.
