At least six Maoists were killed in a fresh gunfight in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district and 15 more bodies were recovered from the Sunday encounter in the same region where 16 rebels had died in an operation by security forces, officials say.
Dr Abhinav Deshmukh, the superintendent of police (SP) of Gadchiroli, said his team recovered the decomposing bodies of the ultra-leftists, including that of two women, floating on the Indravati river on Tuesday morning and were still combing the area. Some weapons were also recovered.
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The latest encounter between the Maoists and the crack commandos of the C-60 force took place on Monday evening in Rajaram Khandala jungle in Jimlagatta region of the district, which is 60 km from the scene of Sunday’s ambush.
“Six Maoists were killed in the encounter and four of them were women,” Deshmukh said.
The C-60 commandos, along with the district police and CRPF jawans are continuing intense search and combing operations in south Gadchiroli since Saturday evening, resulting in the fresh encounter on Monday, he added.
The toll in the two encounters has gone up to 37. This is one of the biggest blows to the extremist rebels in recent years, officials said.
“We had information about the movement of Perimili dalam of the CPI (Maoist) near Tadgaon. So, we launched an operation on Saturday evening. On Sunday, around 9.30am, an encounter ensued that continued for hours. This is the first time that two divisional committee members of the CPI (Maoist) have been killed in one operation,” said DIG (Gadchiroli range) Ankush Shinde.
Source: HindustanTimes