Bastar:Eight Naxalites and one security personnel were killed, and two other STF troopers injured in an encounter in Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh on Saturday, police said.
Sources added that a security personnel involved in the anti-naxal operation succumbed to injuries during the encounter. Police sources said a gunfight broke out early in the morning in the Abhujmad forest, where security personnel from four districts - Narayanpur, Kanker, Dantewada and Kondagaon - were involved in a routine combing anti-Naxal operation.
Speaking to reporters, Bastar IG Sundarraj P said that the joint anti-Naxal operation was organised in Kutul, Farasbeda and Kodtameta areas in Abujhmad of Narayanpur district, since June 14. He said forces from the Special Task Force, District Reserve Guard and Indo Tibetan Border Police' 53rd Battalion from Narayanpur, Kondagaon, Dantewada and Kanker were part of the team involved in the operation.
Another source said the exchange of fire is continuing and some Naxals with huge bounty on their heads were expected to be part of those killed in the operation.
After guns fell silent, bodies of eight Naxalites were recovered from the site along with an Insas rifle, a .303 rifle, a barrel grenade launcher (BGL) and other weapons and Maoist-related materials, an official said. "A jawan of the STF was martyred, and two others sustained injuries," he said.
The injured jawans were shifted to a local hospital and will be airlifted to Raipur for further treatment, he said. As many as 131 Naxalites have been killed in separate encounters with security personnel in Bastar division, comprising Kanker, Kondagaon, Narayanpur, Bastar, Bijapur, Dantewada and Sukma districts, so far this year, police said.
On June 5, six Naxalites were gunned down in an encounter in Narayanpur, while seven Naxalites were killed on the Narayanpur-Bijapur border on May 23. At least 12 Naxalites died in an encounter in Bijapur on May 10, and 10 cadres, including three women, were neutralised along the border of Narayanpur and Kanker districts on April 30. On April 16, 29 Naxalites were gunned down in an encounter with security forces in Kanker district, they said.
