BHOPAL: Four armed Maoist cadres - all women - were gunned down in a fierce gun battle with the Madhya Pradesh police in the jungles of Maoist-affected Balaghat district of the central Indian state on Wednesday.
The gun battle happened near the Raunda Forest Camp in the dense Supkhar forest located under the Garhi police station area, which is close to the eastern end of the Kanha National Park on the MP-Chhattisgarh border.
Acting on specific intelligence inputs, the state police’s elite anti-Maoist force – the Hawk Force – and supporting police teams engaged a group of armed Maoist cadres in an aggressive gun battle, resulting first in the elimination of three women Maoists.
As the anti-Maoist force personnel moved into the dense forests further towards the Chhattisgarh border, another Maoist cadre was found dead.
“In total, four armed Maoist cadres have been eliminated by our force. All the four slain Maoist cadres were women. Four weapons, including an INSAS rifle, an SLR, a 303 rifle and a 315 bore rifle have been recovered from the forests and combing operations are still underway from MP as well as Chhattisgarh side,” MP police’s ADG (anti-naxal operations) Pankaj Srivastava told TNIE.
This is the biggest success so far for the anti-Maoist security establishment in MP, where three districts – Balaghat, Mandla and Dindori – are Maoist affected.
“Before it, the three armed Maoist cadres were killed in an encounter with police in Balaghat in 2022. With the area where the encounter took place being in the dense and rugged forests, more details about the slain Maoist cadres, including their identity and rewards they carry, are awaited,” Srivastava said.
The elimination of the four women Maoist cadres happened 12 days after the anti-Maoist security establishment in southeastern MP’s jungles had seized a under barrel grenade launcher (UBGL) from jungles in Lanji area of Balaghat district, following an encounter with a group of armed Maoists cadres numbering around 20.
According to informed sources forming part of the state police’s anti-Maoist establishment, currently, there are at least four dalams (groups) of the CPI(Maoists) armed cadres operational in the three Maoist-hit districts of eastern MP.
The four dalams include Darre Khasa, Malajkhand, Bhoramdev and Khatia Mocha dalams. In the last few days 20-25 fresh cadres have moved into these four dalams, possibly due to pressure of increased operations by security forces in neighbouring Chhattisgarh.
“There are currently 75-80 armed Maoist cadres whose movement is being reported in the jungles situated on the tri-section of MP, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra’s Maoist-hit districts. Out of them, nearly half could be women cadres, who have long been used by the left-wing extremists, particularly to penetrate deeper among villagers of the area of their operation,” a senior police official forming a key part of the ongoing operations claimed.
Congratulating the state police for the successful anti-Maoist operations in the jungles of Balaghat district on Wednesday, the state’s CM Dr Mohan Yadav said, “The successful operation is part of the state’s resolve to religiously meet the target of Union Home Minister Amit Shah of totally uprooting the naxal menace by 2026.”