At least 30 Maoists and a jawan were killed in two encounters in the Bastar region of southern Chhattisgarh on Thursday, raising the rebel death toll since January beyond 100, sources in the security establishment said.
In a social media post earlier in the day, Union home minister Amit Shah, who has resolved to eradicate Left-wing extremism from the country by March 31 next year, had put the Maoist death toll at 22.
Sources said the operations in Bijapur and Kanker saw the forces encircle the insurgents inside deep forests before attacking them.
At least 105 Maoists, including several senior leaders, have been killed in encounters in Chhattisgarh this year. The intensified operations come following the massacre of eight security personnel and their driver by the rebels in the state in January.
The day’s first gun battle, which began at 7am, left 26 Maoists and “a jawan from the Bijapur District Reserves Guard (DRG)” dead, said Sundarraj P, inspector-general of police, Bastar Range.
He said the encounter involved intermittent firing for hours. “We have recovered explosives and weapons. Search operations are on,” the IGP said.
Sources said the forces had received intelligence about the presence of Maoists in the forests under the jurisdiction of Gangaloor police station in Bijapur.
The second encounter began at 11.30am along the Kanker-Narayanpur border in north Bastar. The bodies of four Maoists were recovered.
Union home ministry sources said the DRG, commandos of Chhattisgarh police, the CRPF and the BSF were participating in the anti-Maoist operations.
Under a plan drawn up at North Block, the forces have been moving deeper into the Maoist bastions of Bastar and setting up forward bases and camps as part of an area-domination exercise, an official said.
He said the forces had set up nearly 300 new forward operating bases and camps in areas once considered Maoist “liberated zones”.
“These forward bases are proving decisive, restricting the movements of the Maoists and helping the forces carry out counter-offensives inside the rebel fortress,” an Intelligence Bureau official toldThe Telegraph.
“Their (Maoists’) areas of stronghold are now shrinking fast, considering the new forward bases being set up inside the forests.”
Additional reinforcements of 2,500 personnel were sent to Chhattisgarh last month to keep up the momentum.
The security forces have been using drones to secure real-time imagery from inside the Abujhmadh forest, a Maoist stronghold spread across 3,900sqkm in southern Chhattisgarh.
Sources said the remote areas where the forward bases have been set up are surrounded by hills and are home to Maoist training camps, weapons and ammo dumps, and rations stores.
“Today, our jawans achieved another major success in the direction of a ‘Naxal Mukt Bharat Abhiyan’. Twenty-two Naxals were killed in two operations byour security forces in Bijapur and Kanker,” Shah said in a post in Hindi.