The Chhattisgarh police on Tuesday claimed that 1,458 Maoists were “neutralised” in the State during 2017.
Terming it a “significantly successful” year on the anti-Maoist operation front, the Anti-Maoist Operations (ANO) unit said 76 Maoists were killed including 51 “big cadre”.
It was a record that so many including 178 big cadre were neutralised. The reward on them was ₹4.80 crore, the ANO said.
It claimed that the security forces had arrested 1,017 Maoists including 79 big cadre and 365 Maoists had surrendered to the security forces.
“The security forces successfully conducted intelligence-based operations in south Sukma [district] and in Maad [area] of Narayanpur district and inflicted heavy casualties on the Maoists. Around 40 were killed during the ‘Prahar operations’. The Special Task Force and the District Reserve Guard conducted offensive operations in the core areas even after two consecutive setbacks to the CRPF in Sukma district,” the ANO claimed.
The specially dedicated unit for tackling insurgency also claimed that the security forces had managed to enter new areas (controlled by the Maoists) to “address security vacuum” and many new forward posts were established “for strategic advance”.
“Construction of 11 roads [under the protection of the security forces] was completed in the year. So was the construction of 75 fortified police stations in LWE affected areas. The construction of the STF hub in Kanker is complete and the construction of STF hubs in Sukma, Bijapur, and Jagdalpur is in progress. Fourteen helipads with night landing facilities have been constructed in Bastar range.”
Senior officials said the “opening of critical axis” in various districts of the Bastar region would be the main aim of the ANO in 2018 along with addressing security vacuum in core Maoist areas.
