10 Naxals Including Top Cadre Balkrishna Gunned Down In East Chhattisgarh
Gun battle breaks out during anti-Naxal operation; STF, CoBRA, and state police involved
Raipur: At least ten Naxals including CPI (Maoist) Central Committee (CC) member Balkrishna were on Thursday gunned down in an encounter with security forces in a forest in the Gariyaband district in east Chhattisgarh, police said.
The encounter was underway till the last reports came.
Acting on the specific intelligence inputs on the presence of top Maoist cadre Balkrishna along with a number of senior Naxal leaders, a joint security team comprising personnel of special task force (STF) and CoBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action) launched a search operation in a forest under Mainpur police station limits, Raipur range inspector general of police (IGP) Amaresh Mishra told this newspaper.
A fierce encounter ensued between them leading to killing of at least ten Maoists and seizure of a huge cache of weapons and explosives, he said.
Bodies of the slain Maoists were still lying in the forest and it was not possible to recover them in the night since there was every possibility of Maoists planting improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in them to harm the security forces, a senior district police officer said.
The encounter is still underway, Mr. Mishra said.
The police officer said the CC member Madem Balkrishna alias Manoj alias Bhaskar was believed to have been killed in the encounter.
Balkrishna carried a bounty of Rs one crore.
He is the second top Maoist leader, slain in an encounter in the area, in the last nine year.
On January 24 this year, 16 Maoists including the CC member Chalpathi were killed in an encounter with security forces that lasted 80 hours in the same area.
Twelve of the 16 slain Naxals carried a combined bounty of Rs 3.16 crore.
Chalpathi was the first CC member of Maoists to have been killed in Chhattisgarh.
