TS cops beef up security on state borders

Hyderabad: The Telangana police have beefed up security along Maharashtra border following the Saturday encounter on a hillock in Gadchiroli in which 26 Maoists were gunned down and several high-end weapons were seized.

The Telangana police conducted vehicle checking on the border areas on Sunday. An internal alert was passed to the unit officers to be vigilant by increasing security at prestigious dams and irrigation projects as precautionary measures.

Senior officials of Telangana intelligence and special intelligence (SIB) teams are closely monitoring the situation taking place in the Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra. Sources said exchange of fire in Gadchiroli was the highest gun battle between Maoists and armed forces after the Ramaguda incident on the Andhra-Odisha border that took place in 2016. In the Ramaguda encounter, as many as 31 Maoists including central committee members and Munna, son of slain Maoist leader Akkiraju Haragopal alias Ramakrishna were killed.

For the first time, the banned CPI (Maoist) party cadre used highly sophisticated weapons including under barrel grenade launcher (UBGL), a single shot grenade launcher and INSAS, known as Indian Small Arms System, that are generally operated by the Indian Army personnel in combating terrorists. The armed forces display such weapons only on Republic Day celebrations at their camps.

The forces have found as many as 12 highly sophisticated weapons that were used by the Maoists. Sources said the Maoists had obtained high-end weapons that were normally not given to central forces which participated in combing operations at several places of Maoist affected places.