Raipur: Twelve Maoists were on Friday gunned down in an encounter with security forces in Bijapur district under south Bastar in Chhattisgarh.
The encounter took place in the Pedia jungle under Gangaloor area in the district, police said.
“An encounter took place in Gangaloor area. Twelve dead bodies of Naxals were recovered. I congratulate our jawans and senior officers for the successful counterinsurgency operation”, chief minister Vishnu Deo Sai said.
He said that since BJP came to power in Chhattisgarh, the fight against Naxals has intensified. Both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah want the Leftwing extremism to end soon and ‘We are getting the benefit of the double engine sarkar’.
Police said that two jawans were injured in the incident.
Acting on special intelligence inputs on the gathering of at least a dozen senior Maoist leaders including Naxal commanders Linga and Papa Rao along with a large number of armed Leftwing guerrillas in Pedia forest, a joint search operation involving security forces of the districts of Dantewada, Bijapur and Sukma was launched on Friday morning.
The joint team of 1200 security personnel drawn from Special Task Force (STF), District Reserve Guard (DRG) and COBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action) came under attack by Maoists in the Pedia forest leading to a fierce encounter between them.
Twelve bodies of Maoists along with some weapons were recovered, police said.
A DRG jawan and a STF jawan were injured in the incident.
A senior police officer said that the West Bastar Division of Maoists headed by Papa Rao attacked security forces in Pedia forest. The Maoist carried a bounty of Rs 40 lakh on his head.
With this, the number of Maoists killed in the last four months has reached 103.
On April 29, ten Maoists were killed in an encounter with security forces in Narayanpur district in Bastar.
Twenty nine Naxals were killed in an encounter with security forces in Maad area under Kanker district in Bastar on April 15 this year.
