C’garh: 12 of 16 slain Maoists in Gariaband encounter identified, cumulatively carry Rs 3.16 crore bounty
Another slain Naxal has been identified as Alok alias Munna who was a divisional committee member (DVCM) carrying a bounty of Rs 18 lakhs
Raipur: Twelve out of 16 Maoists slain in the nearly 70-hour-long encounter with the security forces in the Kulhadighat reserve forest under Gariaband district of Chhattisgarh in January 20-22 have been identified, police said on Friday.
Central Committee (CC) member of the outlawed CPI (Maoist) Jayaram alias Chalapathi alias Pratap Ramachandra Reddy alias Appa Rao alias Ramu was among the 12 deceased Naxals who have been identified so far and they cumulatively carried bounty of Rs 3.16 crore, a senior district police officer told this newspaper.
Chalapathi who was said to be regulating Maoist movement in the states of Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh alone carried a bounty of Rs 90 lakh, according to the police.
Two other senior Maoist leaders slain in the Gariaband encounter were Nuapada-Gariaband-Dhamtari division secretary Jayaram alias Guddu and Odisha state committee member and Nuapada division secretary Satyam Gawde.
Both of them carried a reward of Rs 45 lakh each.
Another slain Naxal has been identified as Alok alias Munna who was a divisional committee member (DVCM) carrying a bounty of Rs 18 lakhs.
Four other deceased Maoists have been identified as Shankar, Kalma, Rinki and Manju who were area committee members and carried a reward of Rs 13 lakh each.
According to Gariaband district superintendent of police Nikhil Rakecha, Chalpathi had been camping in the area for the last several months and he was trying to influence the upcoming three-tier panchayat raj elections in the region of Chhattisgarh.
His widow Aruna is also a CC member.
The encounter between security forces and Maoists started on January 20 and ended on January 22.
This was one of the few encounters in which no less half-a-dozen top-level Maoists were killed.