IN YET another major success, security forces gunned down 17 Naxalites, including 11 women and a Maoist carrying a Rs 25 lakh reward, during an anti-insurgency operation in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district on Saturday, officials said. Three of the injured security personnel belong to the District Reserve Guard (DRG), a unit of the State police, the fourth is from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), they said. A high-ranking, dreaded Maoist, carrying a reward of Rs 25 lakh on his head, is among the neutralised cadres, they said. About 10 days ago, security forces had killed at least 30 members of the banned CPI (Maoist) in two separate encounters in the Bijapur and Kanker districts of the State’s Bastar region, comprising seven district, including Sukma.

 

The latest gunfight broke out around 8 am in the forest under the Kerlapal police station area, where a joint team of security personnel was out on an anti- Naxalite operation, Inspector General of Police of Bastar Range Sundarraj P told PTI. The IG said personnel from the DRG and CRPF’s 159th battalion were involved in the operation launched on Friday night based on inputs about the presence of Maoists in the forests of Gogunda, Nendum and Upampalli villages in the Kerlapal police station area, he said. After the exchange of fire stopped, bodies of 17 Naxalites, including 11 women, were recovered from the encounter site, he said.

 

He said three DRG and one CRPF personnel sustained minor injuries in the face-off. The injured jawans have been admitted to a hospital, and their condition was stated to be normal, he said. Sundarraj said a large cache of firearms, including an AK47 rifle, self-loading rifle (SLR), INSAS rifle, .303 rifle, a rocket launcher and barrel grenade launcher (BGL), and explosive materials were recovered from the spot. WEAPONS CANNOT BRING CHANGE, ONLY PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT CAN: AMIT SHAH ON NAXAL VIOLENCE: THOSE carrying weapons and resorting to violence cannot bring change, only peace and development can, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Saturday after security forces killed 17 Naxalites in Chhattisgarh. “Another strike on Naxalism! Our security agencies have neutralised 16 Naxalites and recovered a massive cache of automatic weapons in an operation in Sukma,” he wrote on ‘X’. 

 

 

 

FIFTEEN Naxalites surrendered in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district on Saturday, a police official said. Of these, Sikka alias Bheema Mandavi was the ‘Jantana Sarkar’ head under Potali RPC of the outlawed CPI (Maoist), he said. “The other 14 are lower rung ultras. They laid down arms citing disappointment with the hollow and inhuman Maoist ideology,” the official said.