Ten alleged Maoists, including three women, were killed in an encounter with the Chhattisgarh Police in the state’s Narayanpur district early on Tuesday morning in increasing evidence of sustained aggression by security forces in the region since the turn of the new year. The exchange of fire comes two weeks after 29 Maoists were gunned down in the neighbouring Kanker district — the biggest blow to Left Wing Extremists in eight years and the biggest ever in Chhattisgarh.
Overall, 91 Maoists have been killed in the first four months of 2024, more than the 22 and 30 Maoists killed in all of 2022 and 2023 respectively. There have also been some signs a counter reaction from the Maoists, with 20 civilians killed by the insurgents so far in 2024, as against 41 in all of 2023. At least three of the civilians killed this year were politicians associated with the BJP.
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Sunderaj P, inspector general of police (Bastar range), said that Tuesday’s encounter took place at around 6am in the forests between Tekmeta and Kaakur villages in the Abhujhmaad region of Narayanpur district.
“A joint team of the District Reserve Guard (DRG) and the Special Task Force (STF) was out on an anti-Naxal operation on Monday night after specific inputs of senior Maoists in the forests. As soon as they reached Kaakur village, the Maoists began to fire at the forces. After the exchange of fire stopped, the bodies of nine Maoists, including two women cadre, have been recovered from the spot,” he said.
Read more: 9 Maoists killed in encounter in Chhattisgarh’s Abhujmad forest: Police
A senior police officer involved in the operation said that the security forces left the Majpur camp, around 50km from the district headquarters of Narayanpur, and around 150 personnel walked 20km through the night to reach Kaakur village. “This is the core area of the Maoists in Abhujhmaad — it borders Narayanpur, Kanker and Gadchiroli (in Maharashtra) districts . We had specific inputs about senior leaders camping in the area, which included information about the presence of a divisional commander,” the officer said.
Two of the Maoists were identified as divisional committee members Vinay, alias Ashok, and Joganna.
Sunderaj said that an AK-47 rifle and a cache of other weapons and explosives have been recovered from the spot, but further details will be available once teams return to camp. “The identity of all Maoists is yet to be ascertained,” the IG said, adding that the deceased cadres were likely from the Abhujhmaad division committee and the North Bastar division committee of the CPI (Maoist).
Though Narayanpur is a separate district, it falls in the Kanker Lok Sabha constituency which went to polls on April 26. Narayanpur and Kanker are among the seven districts that form the Bastar division.
Read more: Emerging lessons from Bastar to counter Maoists
In many ways, Tuesday’s encounter is a part of a larger battle playing out in Bastar, where security forces have become more aggressive in recent months. Their advance has been aided, security officers say, but an infrastructure push that has seen the creation of 17 new forward camps since December 2023 in what until now were core Maoist-controlled areas. These, officers said, have aided a civilian outreach and facilitated more efficient operations since they allow security forces to act on intelligence inputs faster and reach encounter spots sooner. The action is leading to an increase in the administration’s influence, and in turn, aid its ability to gather new intelligence.
Tuesday’s exchange also abets the argument for an expanded area of influence for security forces because it took place in Abhujmaad — 4,000 square kilometre of forests that straddle Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra. Abhujhmaad is an amalgamation of the Gondi words “Abujh” and “Maad” and literally translates to “hills of the unknown”— an area that is yet unmapped by Union government. Several attempts at conducting preliminary surveys in the region have taken place since 2017, but each has been stymied by the extremely difficult geography, lack of infrastructure, and heavy Maoist fortification. It is because of this administrative vacuum that most security officers in Bastar refer to the area as the “last bastion of the Maoists”, where the most senior cadre, including the politburo and the central committee of the CPI(Maoist), take refuge through the year.
Experts said that it was encouraging to see security forces operating so deep inside the Abhujhmaad forests. “Such operations reflect that forces have credible inputs, and they are aggressive now. In the last three months, impactful operations have taken place which have rattled the Maoists,” RK Vij, former special director general of police, said.
Tuesday’s encounter also comes in the middle of a heated Lok Sabha campaign in Chhattisgarh, with seven of its 11 seats set to go to the polls in the third phase of the elections on May 7. To be sure, voting has already taken place in four Lok Sabha constituencies. On April 22, Union home minister Amit Shah mentioned the increased aggression during the party’s campaign, and said that a systematic campaign to end Maoism was taking place under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership. “Elect Modi ji for a third term, and Maoism will be eradicated from Chhattisgarh in two years,” Shah told a rally in Kanker, days after the April 16 operation.
On Tuesday, Vijay Sharma, Chhattisgarh’s deputy chief minister, reiterated a call to the Maoists to begin talks. “If any Maoist, or a big or small group wants to talk through video call or a mediator, we are ready and will arrange better rehabilitation for them. We urge them to join the mainstream. We want peace to prevail in Bastar and development to take place there,” he said. To be sure, calls for negotiations, from both the Maoists and the state government, have existed nominally for several years but have largely failed to materialise for what both sides see as unreasonable conditions.
The government has maintained that Maoists must lay down their arms before any talks, while the Maoists have asked for a complete pullback of forces before any conversations can take place.
“The Congress government had developed a trust with the people of Bastar ….Now the residents of the village are supporting security forces, which are leading to operational success,” said Sushil Anand Shukla, the Congress’s chief spokesperson in the state.
