Thirteen Maoists, including seven women, were neutralised in an encounter with police in the Etapalli forest area in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra on Friday. According to the police, an encounter between C-60 commandos and Maoists broke out at Paydi-Kotmi forest in Etapalli on Friday morning. The Maoists had gathered there for a meeting.
“During the operation, AK-47s, SLRs, carbines, 303, 12-bore rifles, explosives were confiscated,” reads the police statement.
“The C-60 squad had received information about the meeting of the Maoists in the forest, and accordingly, the team launched a planned search operation. C-60 team led by the Superintendent of Police Ankit Goyal carried out this operation,” it added.
The encounter, which began at 5.30 am, lasted around an hour, after which the remaining rebels escaped into the surrounding vegetation, Ankit Goyal, Superintendent of Police (Gadchiroli), told news agency PTI. The bodies of the Maoists have been recovered and a search operation is ongoing, he added.
The Friday operation comes two months after five Maoists—who had a collective bounty of Rs 43 lakh—were killed in an encounter in the same district.
Maharashtra Home Minister Dilip Walse Patil has congratulated the police team for the successful operation. “I will discuss the issue of increasing Maoism on the Chhattisgarh border near Gadchiroli with the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. We will soon initiate a discussion with the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh to explore various measures to prevent Maoist problems in the border areas,” Patil said.