Raipur: Four Maoists, including two women, were killed in an encounter with security forces in the forests of Basaguda and Gangalur in the south-western region of Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district late on Saturday. The slain rebels belonged to the South Sub Zonal Bureau. Three of them were of the ACM level and the remaining a party member commander. The four were carrying a combined bounty of Rs 17 lakh, the police said.
Jitendra Yadav, SP, Bijapur, said that the operation was launched by the District Reserve Guard (DRG) team of the district based on reliable intelligence regarding Maoist activity in the region. The security forces launched a search operation and came under fire from Maoists on Saturday evening. The security forces returned fire, resulting in the deaths.
The encounter is continuing, with trapped Maoists attempting to escape the area.
After the initial round of firing, security forces sanitised the area and carried out a search, leading to the seizure of a cache of arms and ammunition, including a Self-Loading Rifle (SLR), an INSAS rifle, a .303 rifle, a 12 bore gun, an Under Barrel Grenade Launcher, a single-shot weapon, and a large quantity of explosives.
The Maoists killed in the operation have been identified as Hunga, an ACM of Platoon No 10 of the South Sub Zonal Bureau with a bounty of Rs 5 lakh; Lakhe, an ACM of Platoon No 30, also carrying a reward of Rs 5 lakh; Bhime, another ACM from the same bureau with a bounty of Rs 5 lakh and Nihal alias Rahul, a party member and bodyguard of the Bureau Communication Team Head, who carried a reward of Rs 2 lakh.
Around 225 Naxalites have been killed in Chhattisgarh in 2025. Of them, 208 died in the Bastar Division, comprising the districts of Bijapur, Bastar, Kanker, Kondagaon, Narayanpur, Sukma and Dantewada.
Three Naxalites were also killed on Saturday in Jharkhand in an encounter with security forces. They were members of the Jharkhand Jan Mukti Parishad (JJMP), a splinter group of the proscribed Communist Party of India (Maoist). An AK-47 and two INSAS rifles were seized from the area where the encounter took place.
