Chhattisgarh: 5 Maoists including 2 women gunned down in Bastar encounter, 2 jawans injured

Raipur: Five Maoists including two women were on Saturday gunned down in an encounter with security forces in the forest under Abujhmad in Bastar division of Chhattisgarh, police said. Two jawans were injured in the incident.

The encounter took place at around eight in the morning in the forest in north Abujhmad, bordering the districts of Kanker and Narayanpur under Bastar and Gadchhiroli in Maharashtra, inspector general of police of Bastar range
P. Sunderraj told this newspaper.

According to the police, acting on specific intelligence inputs on the presence of Abhay, a member of Central Committee (CC) of outlawed CPI (Maoist) along with a large number of armed Maoists in the forest in north Abujhmad, a joint search operation involving personnel of district reserve guards (DRG), an exclusively tribal counterinsurgency wing of Chhattisgarh police, special task force (STF), Bastar Fighters and Border Security Force (BSF) was launched in the area.

Security forces surrounded the Maoists camping in a forest in north Abujhmad at around eight in the morning, police said.

The Naxals opened fire on the security forces leading to the fierce encounter between them.

“The exchange of fire continued intermittently till the last reports came from ground zero at 5.30 pm”, a senior police officer here said.

Huge cache of arms and ammunition including automatic weapons like Self-Loading Rifle (SLR) and Insas assault rifles were recovered at the encounter site, he added.

The two jawans injured in the encounter have been identified as constable Heerman Yadav of DRG, Kanker and constable Khileswar Gawde of Bastar Fighters, Kanker.

They were airlifted to Raipur for admission in a specialized hospital.

Their conditions were stated to be stable and out of danger.

With the death of five Maoists, the number of Naxals killed in Bastar in the current year so far has gone up to 197, the highest in one year since the formation of Chhattisgarh in 2000.

The slain Maoists included five members of Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee (DKSZC), the most powerful section of the banned outfit handling the Leftwing extremism in eight states.

On October four, 35 Maoists were killed in an encounter with security forces in Abujhmad, the biggest casualty suffered by Naxals at the hands of security forces so far in Bastar.

Nirmala, a DKSZC member carrying a bounty of Rs 25 lakh, was killed in the encounter.