Arrested members of an extremist outfit in Rourkela on Sunday. Also on display are arms, ammunition, SIM cards and mobile phones recovered from them. Picture by Uttam Kumar Pal

Bhubaneswar, July 29: A special police officer (SPO) was killed and another injured in a gun battle with the Maoists in Odisha’s Malkangiri district, 670km from here, today, the second of the Martyrs’ Week being observed by the rebels.

The SPOs are tribals recruited by the state government to assist regular policemen in the Maoist dominated districts of the state. They work with the normal police force but generally don’t take part in combat operations.

Police said a group of rebels fired at the two SPOs while they were on patrolling duty at a local market at Padia, about 70km from Malkangiri town. The latter retaliated leading to an exchange of fire in which SPO Ajit Sodi, 22, was killed while his colleague Lachma Madkami was critically injured. Madkami was admitted to a hospital.

Police immediately cordoned off the area where an intense combing operation had been launched.

Malkangiri is one of the worst Naxal-affected districts of Odisha. This is the second incident of a policeman being killed in the district in the past five months. In March, a sub-inspector was shot dead by four Maoists near Khairput market.

The state government today announced a compensation package for next of the kin of the deceased cop. His next of the kin would get Rs 8 lakh and a job. Besides, the family would also be getting Rs 10 lakh insurance claim.

In another development, a joint team of Sundergarh and Rourkela police arrested 11 members of the People Liberation Front of India, a splinter group of the Maoists operating both in Jharkhand and Odisha.

The outfit had unleashed a reign of terror in areas such as Rourkela and Birmitrapur. Earlier this month, members of the organisation gunned down a contractor and a small time politician linked to the Biju Janata Dal.

On the second day of Martyrs’ Week, movement of vehicles was disrupted in different parts of southern and western Odisha. Long and short-distance passenger buses did not run for security reasons. The worst affected were Malkangiri, Koraput, Rayagada, Gajapati and Kandhamal districts, official sources said.

People waited in vain for government buses to leave from Jeypore and Parlakhemundi depots. Those with urgent work hired cars to reach Vishkhapatnam in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh from where they could catch trains or buses for their onward journey.

In most areas, even trucks and cars remained off roads, for the fear of being attacked by the rebels who felled trees to block roads. Shops and business establishments in the interior areas of the bandh-affected districts downed their shutters.