Maoist killed days after govt declared Chhattisgarh free of armed insurgents

Police said the Maoist was killed in a gun battle in a forested area when a joint team of security personnel was out on an anti-Maoist operation

A Maoist was killed in an exchange of fire with security personnel in Chhattisgarh’s Kanker district on Monday, days after the state was declared free of armed Left-wing insurgents on March 31.

Police said the operation was underway and further details were awaited. (HT PHOTO/Representative)

Police said the gun battle took place in a forested area when a joint team of security personnel was out on an anti-Maoist operation. “So far, the body of a woman Maoist, along with a weapon, has been recovered from the spot,” an officer said. The slain Maoist was identified as Rupi, a member of the Maoists’ Partapur area committee.

The operation was still underway in the area, and further details were awaited, police said.

Union home minister Amit Shah told Parliament last month that the March 31 deadline for ending Left-wing extremism across the country had been met. Shah said 4,839 Maoists surrendered, 706 were killed, and 2,218 were arrested and jailed over the three years of heightened anti-Maoist operations.

Chhattisgarh chief minister Vishnu Deo Sai met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday last and presented a road map, envisaging education hubs, a medical college, irrigation projects, and adventure and eco-tourism, including canopy walks and a glass bridge in the jungles, for the erstwhile Maoist stronghold of Bastar. For decades, Bastar, Dantewada, Sukma, Bijapur, Narayanpur, Kondagaon, and Kanker districts were known as the epicentre of the Maoist insurgency in Chhattisgarh.