Chhattisgarh: 72-Hour Abujhmad Operation Ends, One More Maoist Gunned Down, Naxals Call for Talks With Govt

 Raipur: The 72-hour-long counterinsurgency operation launched by security forces in Abujhmad of Bastar in Chhattisgarh ended on Friday with the killing of the eighth Maoist.

An ultra was on Friday gunned down in an encounter with security forces in a forest along the borders of Dantewada-Bijapur –Narayanpur districts, the Bastar police said.

On Thursday, seven Maoists were killed by security forces in the area.

“The 72-hour-long counterinsurgency operation launched in Handawada-Rekabaya area falling under Abujhmad ended on Friday. A Maoist was gunned down in the area in the morning. With this, the number of Maoists slain in the operation has gone up to eight”, a senior police officer of Narayanpur district said.

Huge cache of arms and ammunition and explosives were also recovered.

The security forces also destroyed a training camp established by Maoists deep inside the Abujhmad forest and recovered a Maoist dump comprising 400 pairs of footwear, explosives and helmets.

Abujhmad, a 4,000 sq km area extending from Bastar in Chhattisgarh to Gadchiroli in Maharashtra, is said to be used by senior Maoist leaders as their safe haven.

In another development, Maoists on Friday called upon the Chhattisgarh government to begin talks to ‘end bloodsheds’ in Bastar.

A Maoist leader who claimed him as a Central Committee member of the outlawed CPI (Maoist) on Friday issued a press release offering to hold talks with the government to end ‘bloodsheds’ in Bastar.

He however put a rider that the talks should be held in a ‘populated area’.

The Maoists’ offer for talks comes amid the killing of 113 Naxals by security forces in Bastar in the last five months.

Chief minister Vishnu Deo Sai has earlier asked the Maoists to choose between two options left before them now, either surrender or get killed.