Bhubaneswar, Oct. 25: A day after the encounter killed 24 Maoists, security forces today intensified combing operations in the Beijing forest near Jantri village in Malkangiri district, police said.
A joint team of security forces from Odisha and Andhra Pradesh had killed the Maoists in the encounter in the forest on the border of Malkangiri district and the neighbouring state.
Police sources said the bodies of three more rebels were recovered from the forest during the search operation but they were yet to be identified. However, Malkangiri superintendent of police Mitrabhanu Mohapatra refused to confirm the information saying that he had no such "inputs" so far.
Security forces continued to comb the forests bordering Andhra Pradesh in the hope of gathering more information about the movement of the rebels who had managed to escape during yesterday's operation that lasted 10 hours. There were around 50 Maoists in the forest where a training camp was being organised when the combined police team attacked it early yesterday morning, Rahul Dev Sharma, police chief of adjacent Vishakhapatnam district in Andhra Pradesh, had said.
Among those killed was Munna, the son of top commander of the banned CPI (Maoist) Ramakrishna alias Saketh, the police said. Two other top rebel leaders, Daya and Ganesh, were also killed. Daya and Ganesh each had a reward of Rs 20 lakh on their heads, Vishkhapatnam police chief Sharma had said.
Andhra-Odisha Special Border Zonal Committee secretary and CPI(Maoist) central committee member, Ramakrishna, and his right hand man, Uday, however, managed to flee.
The cops seized four AK-47 rifles, two SLRs and ten 303 rifles from the encounter spot.
Yesterday's encounter was the biggest success of the police against the Maoists since the Padia encounter in 2013 in which 13 rebels had been killed. The rebels had later retaliated by targeting BSF jawans posted in Malkangiri and Koraput, both known rebel strongholds.
The police have stepped up the hunt for Ramakrishna who, it is suspected, is hiding on the Odisha-Andhra Pradesh border. A senior officer, who did not want to be named, said it was their best chance to nab the rebel chief, who might have suffered injuries in yesterday's encounter. "Our men are hot on his trail. We hope to get him this time," said the officer.
Sources said the operation against the Maoists was likely to be intensified in districts such as Rayagada, Sundergarh, Sambalpur, Jajpur and Keonjhar as well, where incidents of rebel violence had taken place in the past. Sundergarh, among these, is considered the most sensitive given its geographical proximity to Jharkhand and that rebels from both states have hideouts in the Saranda forests on the border. "If the need arises, Odisha may seek help from the Jharkhand police in containing rebel activities in Sundergarh," said a source.
Union health minister Rajnath Singh today spoke to Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik over the phone about the steps being taken to contain Maoist activities in the state. An official release said yesterday's encounter in Malkangiri figured in the conversation. Singh praised the state government's efforts to check rebel activities and promised all possible help from the Centre in this endeavour.
