RAIPUR: Five Maoists, including two women, were shot dead in an encounter with security forces in Bijapur district of Bastar on Sunday, not far from where an IED blast killed eight policemen and a civilian driver. six days ago.
Fourteen Maoists have been neutralized in the first 12 days of the year.
Bijapur SP Jitendra Yadav said that during an anti-Maoist search operation on January 11, security forces received information about the presence of Maoists in Bandapara-Koranjed forests in Madded area of Bijapur National Park region (a about 450 kilometers from Raipur).
Based on this information, joint forces of District Reserve Guard (DRG), Special Task Force (STF) and District Force set out to intercept the Maoists, Bastar Range IG P Sundarraj said. .
The shooting began on Sunday morning in a forest in the Indravati National Park area. The intermittent exchanges of gunfire continued until around 3:00 p.m. When the firing subsided, security personnel recovered the bodies of five uniformed Maoists.
At the scene of the confrontation, an SLR camera, two rifles, a 12-gauge pistol, a grenade launcher, domestically manufactured firearms and explosives were seized.
The Maoists will be identified once the troops return to the base. Police said search operations continue in the region. This region is not far from Kutru, 450 kilometers from Raipur, where a 70-kg improvised explosive device blew up nine people, including eight security personnel.
Security forces have also kept up pressure on Maoists this year after neutralizing 222 Maoists in 2024. This month there have been at least three major clashes in Gariaband, Abujhmarh and Sukma, in which 14 Maoists, including four women, were murdered. One jawan was shot dead in the Abujhmarh encounter and eight policemen were killed in an IED blast in Bijapur on January 6. Two villagers were killed and four injured in Maoist IED blasts.