BHUBANESWAR: Nearly 17 years after ‘Operation Gosmah,’ Odisha police has made a move to honour the 16 police officers and personnel who were part of what was one of the most remarkable and coordinated anti-Naxal responses in the country.
In a letter to DGP YB Khurania, ADG, Operations Sanjeeb Panda has proposed President’s Medal for Gallantry for the police officers and personnel who were part of the operation in the aftermath of the Nayagarh attack.
Recently, families of two martyred security personnel involved in the operation submitted representations to the DGP citing non-recognition of their sacrifice.
In his letter, Panda has recommended the names of the two martyrs along with four constables, one subedar, a deputy subedar, one havildar, a sub-inspector and six IPS officers for President’s Medal for Gallantry for displaying rare and incredible bravery during ‘Operation Gosmah’ which was launched as a response to the one of the bloodiest strikes of CPI (Maoist) in Odisha’s Nayagarh in February 2008.
During the operation, assistant commandant PK Satapathy of Special Operation Group (SOG), constable Susanta Gouda of Berhampur police and sepoy SN Panda of 7th Battalion OSAP had made the supreme sacrifice. While assistant commandant Satapathy was posthumously awarded Ashok Chakra for his incredible bravery and contribution in Operation Gosmah, the bravery of other officers and personnel including the two martyrs has gone unrewarded so far.
About 400 heavily armed militants of CPI (Maoist) had launched a fierce multi-pronged attack on Nayagarh district police armoury, armoury of Police Training School in Daspalla, Nuagaon police station and Mahipur police outpost on the night of February 15, 2008, taking Odisha government by complete surprise.
The Maoists overpowered the civil police personnel and mercilessly killed 15 of them. They looted huge cache of arms (more than 1,000) including sophisticated and automatic weapons like light machine gun, AK-47, INSAS and self-loading rifles, sten guns and other arms. Nayagarh district had not witnessed any Maoist activity till then.
Security forces had forced the Maoists to flee
Even though the anti-Maoist preparedness and command and control mechanism of Odisha Police was at a nascent stage, senior police officers of Berhampur, Ganjam, Kandhamal and Baliguda as well as CRPF immediately swung into action after the deadly attack in what came to be called ‘Operation Gosmah’.
The security forces tracked down the Maoists in Gosmah forest under Tarasingi police limits in neighbouring Ganjam district on February 16 afternoon. By then, the Naxals had already taken position on the elevated hills with LMG and other automatic weapons.
However, the security forces continued to launch counter attacks forcing the Maoists to retreat, leaving behind huge cache of more than 700 weapons and 70,000 rounds of ammunition. This was the biggest arms recovery in the country in any single anti-terrorist/extremist operation then.