The security forces gunned down 21 suspected Maoists early Friday morning in three separate encounters in Chhattisgarh’s South Bastar.
Six CRPF jawans and four Naxalites were injured. Of those dead, six were hardcore Maoist cadres and the rest “jan militias” (armed rebel groups), additional DGP (Naxal operations) Ram Niwas said.
A senior police officer said the securitymen caught the Naxals off-guard while holding meetings in the forests of Korsaguda (Bijapur district), Jagargunda (Sukma district) and Irpanar (Narayanpur district) as the monsoon had set in. “The monsoon is usually known as the off-season for anti-Naxal operations. Both the Naxals and the forces observe an undeclared ceasefire. But there was a change in strategy this time — to intensify operations in the monsoon. The new tactic yielded huge success for the forces, going by heavy casualties in Friday’s operations”, the police officer said.
Mr Niwas told reporters three big search parties of CRPF commandos, special task force and state police launched operations in South Bastar’s Korsaguda, Jagargunda and Irpanar forests after intelligence inputs on the movement of two Maoist “military companies” from Orissa.