Chhattisgarh: Five Naxalites gunned down in encounters in Bijapur district

Bijapur: Five Naxalites were killed in two encounters with security forces in an ongoing operation in the Indravati National Park area of Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district, police said on Saturday.

With the latest casualties, seven Naxalites, including top leaders Sudhakar and Bhaskar, were neutralised in the operation in the last three days, they said.

“Security forces have recovered the bodies of seven Maoists during the ongoing anti-Naxal operations in the Indravati National Park area of the district,” a senior police official said. On Saturday, two bodies were recovered following a gunfight, while three were found after the exchange of fire on the intervening night of Friday and Saturday, he said.

The official said the operation involving personnel from the state police’s Special Task Force (STF) and District Reserve Guard (DRG) as well as the CRPF’s specialised unit CoBRA, was launched on June 4 based on input about the presence of Maoist leader Sudhakar, Telangana State Committee member Bandi Prakash, Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee (DKSZC) member Pappa Rao, and a few other armed cadres.

On Friday, security forces neutralised Bhaskar alias Mailarapu Adellu, a special zonal committee (SZC) member of the Telangana State Committee (TSC) of Maoists who carried a reward of Rs 45 lakh in Chhattisgarh and Telangana, and Maoists’ central committee member Narasimha Chalam alias Sudhakar, who had a bounty of Rs 40 lakh in Chhattisgarh, was killed on Thursday, he said.

The official said the identity of five more killed Naxalites, two of them women, is yet to be ascertained.

A huge cache of arms and ammunition, including two AK-47 rifles, has been seized in the operation, he said, adding that search and area domination operations were underway in the surrounding forested terrain to track remaining Maoist cadres and ensure complete sanitisation of the region.

The outlawed CPI (Maoist) general secretary Nambala Keshav Rao alias Basavaraju (70) was neutralised in the Bastar region on May 21.

Meanwhile, civil rights activists and the Telangana civil rights association on Saturday alleged that Chhattisgarh police had taken Maoist leaders into custody in Bijapur and were killing them one by one in staged encounters. Police, however, dismissed the allegations, stating that all actions were lawful and carried out in strict accordance with operational protocols.