The huge cache of arms and amminition recovered at Dharma in East Champaran. Picture by Ajit Kumar Verma

Motihari, March 14: The encounter at Darmaha under Kesariya police station in East Champaran that started on Sunday afternoon and continued till early on Monday morning dealt a major setback for the CPI (Maoist), which lost six of its armed squad members.

This operation against armed guerrillas of the banned outfit is considered to be a remarkable achievement of the police during past many years, in which the police have arrested at least 10 hardcore activists, including three women and recovered, 13 sophisticated firearms, including five SLRs. All of them were the looted police weapons.

The police also recovered a huge cache of cartridges, unexploded bombs, detonators apart from uniforms and several bundles containing other articles during the search operation conducted after the encounter ended this morning, said East Champaran SP Ganesh Kumar. The police also recovered the remains of exploded bombs from the incident site, he added.

He told The Telegraph: “Recovery of such a huge cache of arms, ammunition and explosives clearly indicates that the Maoists planned to execute some major subversive operation shortly inside or outside the district.”

The East Champaran SP did not divulge the profile of the arrested or killed Maoists owing to security reasons. He, however, said out of the six bodies, two have been identified, whereas among the remaining four, one is presumed to be their gang leader. Meanwhile, the name and role of the local mukhiya has been put under the scanner in the case.

Yesterday’s encounter took place barely five days after they threw an open challenge to the police in a large meeting organised by the Nari Mukti Morcha on Women’s Day at Bakhri Bazaar under Patahi police station area on March 8 this year.

According to police sources, the entire Kasba tola of Darmaha village where around 100 Maoists were hiding for the past two days was surrounded under a three-layered cordon, including CRPF, DAP, STF and SAP. Later the STF team from Patna also reached there as additional reinforcement in support of the local security forces. Even several local villagers also said that a large number of strangers who were apparently looking outsiders were seen active in the village for past two days.

Besides the East Champaran police superintendent Ganesh Kumar, who led this successful operation against the out law guerrilla members, DIG Champaran range Pankaj Dadrad, DIG of CRPF were also present on the occasion, while all through the operations the Motihari Dy SP Sushant Kumar Saroj and his counter parts from Chakia and Pakridayal were fighting shoulder to shoulder with the SHOs of around eight police stations who were present with their force to face the maoists.

Meanwhile, the inspector-general of police (operations) K.S. Dwivedi has reached today from the state headquarter for to review the situation after the operation, said a senior police officer. He added that details regarding the number of Maoists killed or arrested could be divulged only after interrogation.