Chhattisgarh: 3 suspected Maoists killed in encounter in Narayanpur

Three suspected Maoists, including a woman, were killed in an encounter with security personnel in Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh on Monday, the police said, adding that an AK-47 rifle, and other arms and ammunition were also recovered from the spot.

The gunfight broke out around 4pm in the Abujhmarh forest on the Chhattisgarh-Maharashtra border when a joint team of security personnel was out on an anti-Naxal operation.

After the encounter, the security personnel carried out a search operation and found the three bodies alongside a cache of weapons, including an AK-47 rifle, from the spot, the police statement claimed.

Since December 2023, security personnel have created 17 new forward camps in what were thus far thought to be core Maoist-controlled areas. Forces have killed 157 Maoists in 92 separate gunfights in Chhattisgarh this year. During the same period, 682 Maoists were arrested and 660 have surrendered. Meanwhile, Maoists have killed 15 security personnel and 32 civilians in the same period, officials said.

Abujhmarh is known as an ‘unknown hill’ as the 6,000-sqkm-long thick forest has not been surveyed since the British era. The jungle is the epicentre of Maoist activities and about a dozen senior cadres of CPI (Maoist) are believed to be still camping there, according to officials.