Three police personnel, including an assistant sub inspector (ASI), were killed in an encounter with suspected Maoists in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma, nearly 400 km away from Capital Raipur, on Saturday, February 25, 2023.
The latest incident takes the number of police personnel who have been killed by Maoists in Chhattisgarh this week to six.
The deceased – ASI Ramuram Nag and constables Kunjam Joga and Vanjam Bheema – were in their thirties and members of the District Reserve Group, a locally raised counter-insurgency force in Bastar.
The alleged encounter between the police and the Maoists took place around 9 am at a forest between Jagargunda and Kunded in Sukma, said Inspector General of Police (Bastar) P. Sundarraj.
“They were providing security for Jagargunda-Basaguda road construction and area domination. The searching party was attacked by Maoists’ millitary battalion no. 1 and they returned fire. During the gunbattle, three of our jawans died. The encounter lasted for nearly an hour,” said Mr. Sundarraj, adding that reinforcements were sent.
The police said that the security personnel forced the Maoists to retreat and that “there is a possibility of 05-06 Naxalites being killed and injured in the Police-Naxal encounter according to the circumstances prevailing at the spot”.
Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel expressed condolence over the deaths.
“The news of the martyrdom of our 3 brave soldiers during the Naxalite encounter in Jagargunda of Sukma district of Bastar is sad. May God give peace to his soul and courage to the family members. We are all together in this sorrow. Their martyrdom will not go in vain,” he tweeted in Hindi.
Sukma in the Bastar region is one of the worst insurgency-affected districts in the country and by some estimates, accounts for nearly 50 per cent of the casualties in the region.
Last month, Home Minister Amit Shah had said in Chhattisgarh’s Korba that the Central government was working towards solving the problem of Naxalism by 2024
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