Narayanpur: As many as eight Naxalites were killed in an encounter in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur district on Saturday. One security personnel also died during the operation while two others were left injured, police officials said.
The gunfight broke out during the early hours of Saturday in the forest of Abhujmad when a joint team of security personnel from four districts – Narayanpur, Kanker, Dantewada and Kondagaon – was out on an anti-Naxal operation, a senior police official in Raipur said.
The anti-Naxal operation was launched on June 12 and involves personnel of the District Reserve Guard (DRG) from four districts, the Special Task Force (STF) and the 53rd battalion of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP).
This is the second such operation in a month with the first being conducted on June 7 that killed around five Naxalites.
As he took charge of the Union Home Ministry last week, Amit Shah vowed to address the Naxalite or Maoist insurgency during NDA’s third term. He said in its third term the Modi government “shall take its efforts for India’s security to the next level and build Bharat as a bulwark against terrorism, insurgency and Naxalism”.
Shah, earlier this year and before the Lok Sabha elections took place, said that India will be free from the menace of Naxalism in the next three years.
The biggest anti-Naxal operation that 2024 has seen so far occurred in April when security forces killed 29 Maoists in a forest in the district of Kanker which lies in the Bastar division.
In 2023, 22 Naxals were shot down while over almost 50 have been killed so far this year. Meanwhile, between 2019 and 2024, about 280 Naxalites have been killed in Chhattisgarh.
