As many as 26 bodies of Naxals of CPI (Maoist) have been recovered from the forest area of Gadchiroli in Maharashtra following an encounter of C-60 elite force of Maharashtra police with Naxals on Sunday.
“We have recovered the bodies of 26 Naxals so far from the forest,” said district Superintendent of Gadchiroli Ankit Goyal. The official said that the police commando team was conducting a search operation led by additional SP Soumya Munde. According to media reports, three security personnel who were seriously injured were airlifted to Nagpur for treatment.
The encounter is learnt to have taken place in the forest area of Mardintola in Gyarahbatti. The spot is around 250 kilometres from Nagpur, and near the Chhattisgarh border. The elite force had launched an anti-Naxal operation following the specific intelligence inputs about the movement of armed Naxals from forests of Chhattisgarh into Gadchiroli.
According to reports, the incident occurred when jawans of the C-60 force, the elite anti-Maoist squad of the district, were patrolling the area and the Maoist extremists who were hiding in the jungle fired on the jawans. After that, the jawans retaliated immediately. The encounter began in the Kotgul-Gyarapatti forest in the early hours of Saturday and lasted till late in the evening.
A senior CRPF official who had earlier served in Gadchiroli told OpIndia that they had information that the C-60 team had moved in the forest area of Gadchiroli early morning.
“The figure of the casualty and injuries of Naxals may be much higher. We have been told that some Naxals were trying to run away along with dead bodies and injured. C-60 was formed in 1990 as a specialized group to eliminate Naxals from Gadchiroli which is the stronghold of Naxals,” the official said.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that senior Maoist leader Deepak Teltumbde has been killed in a major operation in Gadchiroli.
— Rahul Pandita (@rahulpandita) November 13, 2021
While the identity of the slain Naxals has yet to be ascertained, some top Maoist leaders are said to be have been eliminated in the encounter. It is also being said that that senior Maoist leader Deepak Teltumbde has been killed in a major operation in Gadchiroli.
Security forces also recovered weapons and other materials from the spot of the encounter, and a massive combing operation was underway to detect more bodies of the extremists. The bodies of the slain extremists will be brought to Gadchiroli for post mortem.
