Troops of C60, CRPF storm site of clandestine meeting; two top leaders among bodies identified
› A combing operation was again launched since Monday evening to search bodies in Indravarti river and 15 more bodies were recovered.
ANKUSH SHINDE, DIG of Gadchiroli range
NAGPUR: The police said they had gunned down 37 armed Maoists in 48 hours in two gunbattles in Maharashtra’s south Gadchiroli.
At least six Maoists were killed in a gunfight in Nainer jungle near Jimalgatta village on Monday evening and 15 more bodies were recovered from the site of Sunday’s shootout in which 16 rebels had died.
Police said that among the bodies recovered initially from the Rela-Kasnasur forest, two were senior members of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), identified as Srinu alias Srikant, who was in charge of the south Gadchrioli division of the extremist organisation, and Sainath, alias Dolesh Madhi Atram. Srinu and Sainath carried a reward of ₹20 lakh and ₹12 lakh on their heads.
Among the 37 dead militants who were killed in the two encounters, 19 were women, including 18-year-old Suman Kulyeti, a platoon member, who carried a ₹4 lakh reward on her head. Security forces have recovered 15 decomposing bodies of the ultra-leftists, including two women, floating in the Indravati river on Tuesday morning, said Abhinav Deshmukh, superintendent of police (SP) of Gadchiroli. “The combing operation in the area is still on. Some weapons were also recovered.”
The latest encounter between the Maoists and commandos of the elite C-60 force took place on Monday evening at a site that is 60 km from the scene of Sunday’s gunbattle. “Six Maoists were killed in the encounter and four of them were women,” Deshmukh said. C-60 commandos, along with district police and CRPF troopers, have been engaged in an intense search in south Gadchiroli since Saturday evening, resulting in the fresh encounter on Monday, he added.
One of the slain Maoists, Nandu Atram, was the Aheri dalam (squad) commander and carried a reward of ₹16 lakh on his head. The search operation was stopped on Sunday evening until Monday afternoon because of heavy rain in the area and lack of sufficient personnel. “A combing operation was again launched since Monday evening to search bodies in Indravarti river and 15 more bodies were recovered,” said deputy inspector general (Gadchiroli range) Ankush Shinde.
Maharashtra’s additional director general of police (special operations), D Kanakaratnam, who visited the spot on Tuesday afternoon said only 21 of the slain Maoists had been identified so far. The identified extremists carried a collective reward of ₹1.09 crore, he said.
RAIPUR: Maoist rebels are under pressure from security forces in Dandakaranya forests of eastcentral India, their traditional stronghold, and are trying to build a new bastion, according to interrogation reports of Maoist leaders and documents seized by police of Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra, a reason why they may be congregating in Gadchiroli.
Dandakarayana is spread between the borders of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Odisha, and the Maoists call it a free zone. The Communist Party of India (Maoist) has divided Dandakaranya into nine divisions, each comprising three/five area committees; every area committee is composed of several local organisational squads ( LOS ) and local guerrilla squads ( LGS).
South Gadchiroli is one of the nine divisions of the Maoists in Dandakaranya where 37 Maoists have been killed by security forces in the last three days, including 31 in an encounter on April 22.
“The recent activities of Maoists in Rajnandgaon, Khawardha (both in Chhattisgarh), Balaghat and Mandala (both in Madhya Pradesh) proves that they are moving to new regions in the MMC, of which Gondia and a tip of Gadchiroli (both in Maharashtra) are part. As per details available with us, there are about 180 armed cadres who have shifted to this new MMC area,” said a senior intelligence officer posted in Chhattisgarh who did not want to be named, referring to the Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chattisgarh or MMC region.
According to security forces officers in Chhattisgarh, the attacks by security forces in Dandakaranya have led to disputes between Maoist leaders and the cadre.
On February 9, Gadchiroli police arrested Ramanna, also known as Srinivas Madru, and his wife Padma, both Maoist operatives. Ramanna was one of the founder members of the Peoples’ War Group (PWG) that merged with another rebel outfit, Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI), in 2004 to give birth to the unified CPI (Maoist).
Ramanna allegedly told the police the CPI (Maoist) is now concentrating on the tri-junction of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh.
“We have documents which suggest that owing to pressure of the security forces in Dandakaraya region, they are now shifting to MMC… They are armed with automatic weapons but steps to contain them are going on,” said DM Awasthi, special director general (anti-Maoist operations), Chhattisgarh police.
A letter recovered by the security forces in February 2017 from Bastar points to increasing pressure from security forces in the region forcing Maoists to shift to MMC.
The letter written to a Maoist rebel, identified as comrade Surendra, from comrade Somru said: “Oppression is rising. The enemy are opening camps. Villagers are fleeing from the area and we are working in difficult conditions.”