Three more Maoists killed by security forces in Chhattisgarh | Latest News India

Three suspected Maoists were on Saturday morning killed in an encounter by security forces in a dense forest in Bijapur district near the shared border of Chhattisgarh and Telangana, taking the number of insurgents killed thus far this year to 50, up from 22 in all of 2023, and indicting a significant surge in aggression — from both state forces and the Maoists.

This is the second significant encounter in the district in a week after 10 Maoists were killed on Tuesday, and follows a series of confrontations between the extremists and security forces in the state.

On Saturday, Chhattisgarh police said the gunfight started around 5.30am in Pujari Kanker forests where a team of Greyhounds, a Telangana special counter-insurgency unit, was conducting an anti-naxal operation.The area is a stronghold of the banned Left Wing extremist (LWE) outfit CPI(Maoists).

A team from Chhattisgarh Police was also present in the area to provide auxiliary support to the Greyhounds.

Police said the search and sanitisation operations at the encounter spot continued late into the night and one light machine gun (LMG) and one AK-47 rifle were recovered from the scene.

“Three Maoists were killed in the gunfight and one LMG, one AK -47 was also recovered from the spot,” said Jitendra Yadav, superintendent of police (Bijapur), adding that forces from both the states were still in the forest. No other details of the encounter were immediately available.

None of the dead rebels have been officially identified, but people familiar with the matter said that among the deceased was Anne Santhosh, alias Sagar, commander of battalion-2 of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA)’s Central Regional Command. The PLGA is the armed wing of the banned CPI (Maoist). If true, this could be the biggest cadre killed this year.

The operation on Saturday came a day after Chhattisgarh Police on Friday said a suspected Maoist was killed in an encounter with security forces in the Dantewada district.

Earlier on Tuesday, 13 Maoists were killed and two jawans injured in Bijapur district in the deadliest exchange of fire in Bastar since 2019 when seven Maoists were killed in Nagarnar. This came four days after six Maoists were killed in another encounter in Bijapur. Overall, 50 alleged Maoists have been killed in 2024 in the seven districts of Bastar region — Kanker, Kondagaon, Narayanpur, Bastar, Dantewada, Sukma and Bijapur. This is more than double the 22 rebels killed in 2023. Officers also believe that the number of Maoists killed thus far this year may be higher, with count being conducted on the basis of the bodies that are recovered by security forces. Other bodies could have been taken away by the rebels giving an incomplete figure of Maoist deaths.

But there has also been a counter-reaction from the insurgents, with 19 civilians killed by them in 2024, three of them BJP leaders, with 41 civilians killed in 2023. The advances by the security forces have also brought with them allegations of fake encounters, all of which the police have dismissed as part of an established Maoist policy of obfuscation.

Experts believe that the sheer regularity of these security operations that are attacking Maoists in their core bastions will have an adverse effect on their morale, but crucially, their recruitment and supply chains. “This continuous movement in these areas shows that no base is safe for the Maoists. This onslaught will shake confidence, affect their ability to move cadre and supplies, and ultimately erode people’s support. These are good signs,” RK Vij, former special director general, Chhattisgarh police told HT earlier this week.