BHOPAL: Back in the late 1990s, two trucks loaded with explosives were looted by armed Maoist cadres in the dense Pachama Dadar forests of southeastern Balaghat district.
Nearly three decades later, a prolonged but successful cordon and search operation by anti-Maoist security forces in the same forest on Saturday and Sunday has led to the elimination of four outlaws and the recovery of a truck filled with arms, ammunition, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), detonators and other belongings.
An intensive and ongoing operation by the anti-Maoist establishment, comprising the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), particularly its COBRA teams, the state police’s Hawk Force, and teams from the Balaghat and Mandla district police, resulted in two back-to-back encounters on Saturday.
The encounters led to the killing of four armed Maoist cadres, including three women, now identified as Suman (Darrekhasa Area Committee), Rita (Tanda Area Committee), Ravi and Imla alias Tulsi (both from the Malajkhand Area Committee). All four carried rewards of Rs 14 lakh each.
Among them, Ravi was a key member of the Kanha Bhoramdeo Divisional Committee, a Maoist administrative unit established by the Communist Party of India (Maoist) to expand their presence in the forested areas of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
“Ravi was among the closest aides of Milind Teltumbde, the CPI (Maoist) Central Committee member and in-charge of the outfit’s Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh (MMC) zone, who was killed in an encounter with security forces in Maharashtra in 2021,” Balaghat district police superintendent Aditya Mishra told TNIE on Sunday.
One of the three women Naxals, identified as Rita, was accused in 33 cases in Madhya Pradesh alone. A native of Maharashtra, she is believed to have killed a policeman in her home state in the past. She was the wife of Devchand alias Chandu, a divisional committee member.
It is around this time every year that the annual plenary meeting of all three area committees of the CPI (Maoist) active in this region is held to plan the future course of action.
“The hideout which was busted in the dense Pachama Dadar forests was supposed to be the place where the meeting was to be held shortly, to chalk out the future action plan, particularly to bring in fresh cadres from Chhattisgarh, where the outlaws have been pushed to the back foot due to sustained anti-Maoist operations aimed at uprooting left-wing extremism (LWE) by March 2026,” a senior Madhya Pradesh police official said.
The successful anti-Maoist operation on Saturday is believed to have not only disrupted the regrouping of the three area committees for a major event but also prevented the crucial annual meeting from taking place.
With search and combing operations still continuing deep inside the forests, the possibility of the meeting being held has become remote.
“Ravi could’ve been the key man who might have been tasked with the transit of armed LWE cadres from Chhattisgarh to strengthen the armed struggle here, but he has been eliminated,” the senior officer said.
Almost three decades ago, the Pachama Dadar forests, located around 65 km from Balaghat town, were a core mining zone but gradually turned into one of the safest and most unbreachable terrains for the LWE.
“In the late 1990s, the armed Maoist cadres looted two trucks full of explosives. Nearly three decades later, the police have recovered arms, ammunition and explosives, including IEDs, live detonators, grenades, rifles and grenade launchers from the hideout in the same jungles. The recovery was so large that it had to be transported in a truck," Mishra said.
"Almost 30 years later, the ongoing operation in the densely forested Pachama Dadar plateau, which started on Saturday, has changed the narrative that we (security forces) cannot come there and hit you. The unbreachable Naxal base has been breached and it no longer remains their impregnable safehouse,” Mishra added.