Raipur: Encouraged by their recent success against Naxals, security forces in Chhattisgarh are focusing on targeting the senior rung of the ultras in South Bastar, the strongest base of the outlawed Maoists in the country.
Atleast 10 rebels, including five self-styled "commanders", were gunned down in the past 17 days in Sukma and Bijapur districts where paramilitary forces along with the state police are engaged in intense anti-Maoist operations since early this month.
"On the direction of Ministry of Home Affairs, the state authority has been focusing on uprooting Naxals from a major portion of Sukma and Bijapur, which is very important from a strategical point of view," a senior police official involved in anti-Naxal operations told PTI on condition of anonymity.
The forests of Sukma and neighbouring Bijapur, located around 450 kms from Raipur in the state's extreme south, not only help rebels in movement across Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Maharashtra through Chhattisgarh, but are also ideal for guerrilla warfare training due to dense tree cover, he said.
The region is also considered an ideological base of Maoists. Sukma and Bijapur are among the highly militarized districts in the country.
While as many as 11 battalions (nearly 1,000 personnel each) of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), including its elite CoBRA wing, have been deployed in Sukma, eight battalions of paramilitary forces are stationed in Bijapur, he said.
Nearly 13,000 and 10,000 security personnel (including of state force) are engaged in anti-Maoist operations in Sukma and Bijapur, respectively, the official said.
"The recent operations have considerably weakened the morale of the cadres in their base area and the security forces do not want them to re-group. Therefore the strategy is to target the prominent and senior leaders, rather than going after the foot soldiers," he said.
Senior Maoist leaders Papa Rao, Ganesh Uike, besides "commanders" Hidma, Nagesh and Sonu, active in South Bastar, are among those on the radar, he said.
"We have got success in recent operations conducted in core areas of Sukma and more intense operations are in the offing to cripple Maoist cadres in their stronghold," Sukma Additional Superintendent of Police Santosh Singh told PTI.
The strategy is to target some crucial restive locations of the region and set free those areas from the clutches of ultras, said Singh, who is handling anti-Maoist operations
wing in the district. He said the forces were continuously tracking the locations of senior leaders and dreaded commanders and launching exercises based on intelligence inputs.
An operation yesterday was based on a tip-off about presence of Maoist commander Hidma, who is the self-styled head of "1st military battalion" of Naxals, in Bhejji area of Sukma.
Although Hidma managed to escape as the encounter broke out between security forces and ultras, two cadres, including a woman, were gunned down.
The deceased were identified as Aaytu, head of Janatana Sarkar in Jagargunda area of Sukma, and woman Naxal Jogi, who was a local area "commander".
Similarity, Rainu, who was "commander" of Bairamgarh area committee's action team, was among the four rebels killed by security forces in Bijapur on November 13.
