STRIKING AT MAOIST ROOTS

Intelligence gathering, planning and execution by security forces came together in a perfect operation against the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA), the armed wing of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) in Chhattisgarh.

- Rahul Noronha

The joint strike on October 4 by the District Reserve Guard (DRG) and Special Task Force (STF) in the forests along the border of Narayanpur and Dantewada districts, in the Bastar division in the south of the state, dealt a massive blow to the Maoists. At the end of the gunfight, 31 PLGA cadres of company number 6 lay dead-the highest ever death toll among Maoists in a single encounter with security forces in Chhattisgarh. Most importantly, not a single security personnel was killed. Among the dead were 29 dangerous Maoist operatives who had a collective reward money of Rs 2.15 crore on their heads. The exact location of the encounter is the jungles around Nendur-Thulthuli villages, a place considered the southern gateway to the thickly forested Abujhmad (the unknown hills' in Gondi) area-the long-impregnable Maoist bastion. Of the 31 Maoists killed, 13 were women.

Among them was Neeti, a member of the Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee (DKSZC). There were other high-value Maoist targets killed that day, including three divisional committee members and six area committee members.