RAIPUR/CHAIBASA: In a targeted operation against the outlawed CPI (Maoist) on Wednesday, the security forces launched a surgical attack in the adjoining areas in districts of Sukma and Bijapur close to the border with Telangana, and Jharkhand, CRPF sources said. They said choppers were pressed into action and the target of the mission was the rebels’ Battalion of People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) and its chief Hidma. Sources said the Maoists sustained heavy losses.
Multiple units of the Central Reserve Police Force, its jungle warfare commando unit CoBRA, Chhattisgarh Police and Greyhounds of the Telangana police are engaged in the operation, sources said. The forces have been mobilised on the basis of specific intelligence inputs. Their target is the tri-junction of Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Odisha which is located right at the southern tip of Sukma district in south Bastar region.
The forces are aided by commandos, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and global positioning data, sources said. A statement issued by the outlawed Maoist group acknowledged the security operation, which it said started at 11 am. It said aerial attacks were continuing, which it alleged were preventing farmers from going to fields. “Fear has gripped the entire area as the massive operation is a part of Home Minister Amit Shah’s plan to uproot the Maoists,” it said.
A senior police officer said all the troops are safe and details will be shared once the operation concludes. A report from Chaibasa, Jharkhand said six personnel of CRPF’s elite COBRA battalion were injured on Wednesday in a bomb blast after an encounter with the CPI(Maoist) at Tumbahaka forest in Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district, a police officer said. However, none of them was injured seriously. A New Delhi report said the NIA carried out searches at multiple locations in Jharkhand, Bihar, and West Bengal on Wednesday in connection with a Naxal attack in which five cops were killed in 2019.