Gadchiroli Police gun down 12 Maoist insurgents

Gadchiroli (Maharashtra), July 18: Dealing a crippling blow to the armed Maoist movement ahead of the Maoist Week, the Gadchiroli Police gunned down 12 insurgents including five women rebels, in the jungles near Wandoli Village on the Maharashtra-Chhattisgarh border, top officials said here on Thursday.

The deep forest encounter in pouring rain led to the recovery of a cache of arms and ammunition, eliminating three top-rung functionaries and has practically cleansed north Gadchiroli of armed Maoist activities, said a beaming Superintendent of Police, Neelotpal on Thursday afternoon.

Among those who were shot dead include three Divisional Committee members, five Area Committee Members of the banned CPI(Maoist), plus four Dalam Members, coming barely days ahead of the Naxal Week from July 28-August 3.

Three police officers – Satish Patil, Shankar Potavi and Vivek Shingole sustained bullet injuries in the cross-firing with the armed Reds. They were immediately evacuated in a helicopter mid-way during the encounter, flown to Nagpur where they are undergoing treatment in a hospital and their condition is stable.

“All the deceased were wanted for various heinous crimes and carried a collective bounty of Rs 86 lakh on their heads… With this operation, the Local Organisation Squad of the entire Korchi-Tipagad and Chatgaon-Kasansur region has been wiped out and complete north Gadchiroli cleared of armed Maoist groups,” said Neelotpal.

He was flanked by the top brass which guided and strategised the major operation comprising Sandip Patil, Ankit Goyal, Yatish Deshmukh, Kumar Chintha, M. Ramesh, Vishal Nagargoje and crack commandos and personnel of the Anti Naxal Operation (ANO).

The post-encounter combing operations reaped a cache of arms and ammunition comprising seven automatic weapons like one carbine, one SLR, two INSAS, three AK-47s, explosives, detonators, lots of Maoist literature, and other personal belongings of the slain Maoists in the vicinity.

Neelotpal said that a tip off was received on Wednesday morning that around 12-15 Maoists of the Korchi-Tipagad and Chatgaon-Kasansur LOS were camping in the forests near Wandoli on the Maharashtra-Chhattisgarh border, with plans to carry out subversive activities during the forthcoming Naxal Week.