Sixteen Maoists were killed and three security personnel injured in an encounter in a forested area along the Sukma-Dantewada border in south Chhattisgarh on Saturday.

The condition of the three injured security personnel is said to be stable, anofficial said.

Sources said the encounter broke out in the early hours of Saturday inside a forest under Kerlapal police station in Sukma district where an anti-Naxalite operation by a joint team of the District Reserve Guard and the Central Reserve Police Force was under way.

“Automatic weapons, like AK-47, a self-loading rifle, Insas rifle, a .303 rifle, a rocket launcher, barrel grenade launcher and explosives have been recovered,” a Union home ministry official said.

The slain Maoists are yet to be identified.

Security forces are searching the encounter site and the surrounding forests.

“Search operations are on as security personnel are combing the vast area inside the forest,” the official said.

Sukma, which has witnessed several Maoist attacks in the past, is one of the worst-hit districts in theBastar region.

Union home minister Amit Shah on Saturday said the Centre had resolved to eradicate Naxalism by March next year and issued an appeal for peace and development.

“Another strike on Naxalism! Our security agencies have neutralised 16 Naxalites and recovered a massive cache of automatic weapons in an operation in Sukma,” Shah said in a post on X.

“Under the leadership of PM Shri @narendramodi Ji, we are resolved to eradicate Naxalism before the 31st of March 2026. My appeal to those with arms is that weapons and violence cannot bring change; only peace and development can,” he added.

At least 121 Maoists, including several senior leaders, have been gunned down in encounters in Chhattisgarh this year following the launch of a massive anti-insurgency offensive aided by drones in retaliation to the massacre of eight police commandos and their driver in January.

Last year, 219 rebels were neutralised by the security forces in separate encounters in the state.

Last week, an intelligence report suggested that an all-out offensive in Chhattisgarh had forced several Maoist leaders to move towards the MMC corridor, which covers jungles in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, to escape the onslaught by the security forces in the “liberated zone” ofChhattisgarh.

The MMC corridor, which includes districts situated at the tri-junction of the three states, was created by Maoists in 2016 as a new front to provide a breather to their comrades in southern Chhattisgarh. They developed the MMC zone as an alternative to their forested headquarters in Abhujmad between the Narayanpur and Dantewada districts in the Bastar region.

Sources said an alert had been sounded in the three states following the latest intelligence report.