VISAKHAPATNAM: As questions arise over the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha joint operation in Malkangiri in which 24 Maoists are said to have been killed in a pre-dawn encounter, Andhra Pradesh director general of police N Sambasiva Rao denied that it was a pre-planned “surgical strike” meant to target senior leaders of the CPI (Maoist) movement.
"The police surrounded the area acting on local information which was very general in nature. The dead might include important leaders but we have to ascertain their identity," the DGP said.
The word going around is that one of the dead militants is Uday, an important Maoist leader in Odisha. Ramakrishna, the leader of Andhra-Odisha Border special zonal committee, is understood to have escaped.
DGP Sambasiva Rao said he suspected that the Maoists had camped in Malkangiri for a plenary session of the CPI (Maoist). Police also recovered firearms, which included three AK 47s, at the site of the encounter.
"We think the Maoists gathered for a meeting. Going by the seizure of arms, quite a number of firearms were recovered from the spot," Sambasiva Rao added. The police moved in after warning the militants to surrender and when there was resistance, the police were forced to open fire, he stressed.
He did not rule out the possibility of some Maoists having escaped into the woods.
The encounter took place near the Balimela reservoir in Odisha where in 2008 Maoists killed 38 Greyhounds policemen, by opening fire and throwing grenades at them when they were on a motorised boat on the reservoir.
In the early hours of Monday, a team of policemen comprising Andhra Pradesh’s special anti-naxalite force – the Greyhounds and the Odisha police, after getting a tip-off about the Maoists’ movement in the Malkangiri area, surrounded the hideout where they were camping, after midnight and closed in on them, opening fire.
In a reversal of Balimela, this time the Maoists were at a disadvantage, unable to retaliate effectively, though they managed to hurt two Greyhounds policemen who were later rushed to hospital for treatment of bullet injuries.
One of the Greyhounds policeman, Abu Bakar, succumbed to bullet wounds in hospital. The police have informed his family in Gajuwaka near Visakhapatnam, and ex-gratia of Rs 40 lakh has been offered to them.
Meanwhile, the DGP said the exchange of fire was still continuing and only after it ceases would he know the exact number of deaths.