The Gadchiroli police on Thursday foiled a plan by naxal operatives to ambush security forces and kill the local tribals, by gunning down two Maoists in a fierce encounter and recovering a cache of arms and ammunition in the forests located on the Maharashtra-Chhattisgarh border.
Acting on a tip-off that a large contingent of naxals was camping in the forests located on the Chattisgarh as part of its plan to ambush security forces and kill innocent tribals, the police teams launched a massive combing operation in the forest area, prompting the Maoists to indulge in indiscriminate firing at them. The police teams retaliated in a big way at the Maoists.
The credible intelligence input that the Gadchiroli police had received was that a large mumber heavily armed Maoists were camping near Bodhintola some 10 km from last outpost Godalwahi in Chhattisgarh, with “an intention to cause sabotage and ambush on the police forces and to kill innocent tribals branding them as police informers”.
In the fierce encounter between naxals and the police that lasted for more than an hour, at least two Maoists were killed. After the encounter, the police recovered the bodies of two Maoists killed in the firing and also some arms and ammunition, including an AK47 and a SLR weapon, from the encounter site.
The police identified one of the two Maoists killed in the encounter as Durgesh Watti, deputy commander of Kasansur Dalam who was one of the main conspirators of the Jambulkheda blast in which 15 Gadchiroli police personnel were killed in 2019.
Efforts are on to identify the second body. The police teams are continuing search operations in the forest areas located on the border of Chhattisgarh.
It may be recalled that on May 1, 2019, 15 commandos and a driver were killed in a landmine blast of two security vehicles carried out by Maoists in Kurkheda tehsil of Gadchiroli district in eastern Maharashtra.
The shocking attack on the security vehicles had come ten hours after the Maoists set on fire at least 36 private vehicles and two site offices of a road engaged in construction and repair work along the Purada-Malewada-Yerkhade stretch of the Maharashtra-Chhattisgarh national highway number 136.
