Raipur, June 30: Chhattisgarh police today admitted that the 18 victims of yesterday’s anti-Maoist operation included children and women, but sparked fresh controversy by claiming they were all rebel cadres.

The admission came after the bodies were laid out in front of a police station to facilitate identification — a routine procedure — and journalists took photographs. It was clear that several of the victims were children and at least one seemed to be a girl.

The BJP government had also come under pressure from the Congress, which sent a team to the remote encounter site and claimed that “preliminary information” suggested the dead included at least three children “below the age of eight” and several women.

The security forces had yesterday claimed to have killed 17 Maoists in a pre-dawn jungle raid in Bijapur district — an injured rebel died later in hospital — but local people had alleged that most of the dead were villagers attending a meeting called by the rebels.

“As far as our information is concerned, more than a dozen innocent villagers were killed in the encounter,” state Congress president Nandkumar Patel said.

The police, however, insisted that the children and women were members of Maoist dalams (armed squads). Officers have often claimed that the rebels give arms training to village children and often use them and women as human shields.

“It is an established fact that the Maoists are using children and women in their cadre,” inspector-general of police (anti-Maoist operations) G.P. Singh said. The Opposition, however, criticised these claims as well as a statement by state home minister Nankiram Kanwar, who said: “Those killed with the Naxalites too are Naxalites and will meet the same fate.”

“The children cannot be Maoists as claimed by the police,” Congress chief Patel said. He described Kanwar’s statement as “irresponsible and childish” and asked how a school-going child could be dubbed a Maoist supporter.

“The chief minister, Raman Singh, should come out with a statement to clear the government’s stand,” he said.

Intelligence sources, speaking on condition they wouldn’t be identified, suggested what might have happened during the raid. They said the villagers had gathered for a meeting called by the Maoists who wanted to mediate a solution to a local land dispute. When the forces attacked, most of the Maoists fled and the villagers came under fire.

Patel said a Congress team was on its way to the site. The Adivasi Mahasabha too will travel to the site tomorrow on a fact-finding mission.