Four women among 5 ‘Maoists’ gunned down in Kalahandi

BHUBANESWAR: Security personnel gunned down five suspected Maoists, including four women, following a heavy exchange of fire in a forest in Odisha’s Kalahandi district on Wednesday. A jawan of the special operation group (SOG), the anti-Maoist force of the state police, was injured in the gunfire.
The identities of the deceased were being ascertained.
The exchange of fire took place under the M Rampur police limits on the Kalahandi-Kandhamal border.“Acting on an intelligence input, our personnel (the SOG and the district voluntary force) entered the forest on Tuesday to launch an operation. A group of Maoists, who had been camping in the jungle, opened fire on our personnel. One of our jawans was injured in the firing. Five Maoists have been neutralized in retaliatory firing,” superintendent of police (Kalahandi) B Gangadhar told TOI.
Sources said the exchange of fire between the suspected Maoists and the police occurred around 11am on Wednesday and continued for nearly half an hour. Police seized two SLR rifles, three single-barrel rifles, some live ammunition and other Maoist-related articles from the Maoist camp.
Combing operations were stepped up in the area following the exchange of fire. “We have deployed security forces in the area and anti-Maoist operations have been intensified,” SP (Kandhamal) Vinit Agrawal said. Police suspect that the Maoists might have fled into the dense jungle in Kandhamal after the killings.
This was the third major anti-Maoist operation in the state in the last two months. Five suspected rebels, including two women, were gunned down in Kandhamal district on July 5. The security personnel had killed two suspected Left-wing extremists in a forest of Tumudibandha area in Kandhamal district on July 23.
Left-wing extremism (LWE)-related violence has significantly declined in the state in the last few years. At least 13 Maoists have so far been killed in different districts this year. The casualties of suspected Maoists stood at 19 in 2018 and 8 in 2019. Recently, the state government declared five districts — Angul, Boudh, Sambalpur, Deogarh and Nayagarha — Maoist-free belts. These districts did not report any Maoist-triggered violence in the last two years or more, which is a major criterion for acknowledgement as a Red-free zone.
At present, altogether 10 (Koraput, Malkangiri, Rayagada, Bargarh, Balangir, Nabarangpur, Kalahandi, Nuapada, Kandhamal, and Sundargarh) of the 30 districts in the state are affected by LWE.
(With inputs from Hruskesh Mohanty in Berhampur)