Security forces engage in gunfights with Maoists in Odisha

Security forces today exchanged fire with Maoists, believed to have sneaked into Odisha's Rayagada and Kandhamal districts from Chhattisgarh due to a heavy combing operation underway there.

Odisha's Director General of Police K B Singh said the police were yet to ascertain whether the rebels engaged in the gunfights with security personnel were from Chhatisgarh.

In Rayagada district, a joint team of the District Voluntary Force (DVF) and Odisha's elite anti-Maoist Special Operation Group engaged in an encounter with a group of about 15 Maoists in the Samjhola forest reserve. The rebels later fled to the adjoining hills.

The police said there was no report of any casualty.
 

"We were tipped-off about the movement of a group of Maoists in the Samjhola forest and an operation was launched on Thursday evening. However, our men spotted the Maoists around 5 am on Friday. Seeing our men the Maoists opened fire, to which we retaliated," Superintendent of Police, Rayagada, K Siba Subramani said.

Later during a combing operation, explosives, ammunition and at least 100 pieces of electronic detonators and other belongings of Maoists were seized from the spot.

A report from Kandhamal said there was a gunfight between the CRPF, the DVF and Maoists in the Jagespanga forest reserve, about 55 km from the district headquarters of Phulbani.

The police said the Maoists fired at them when the CRPF and the DVF were conducting a joint combing operation based on a tip-off about a Maoist camp in the forest.

There was a group of about 16 Maoists, including some women in the camp. However, there was no report of any causality and injury, it said.

"We are awaiting the detailed report about the encounter. Some materials and explosive are said to have been seized from the spot," Kandhamal Superintendent of Police Pinak Mishra told reporters.

A heavy combing operation is underway in Chhattisgarh, where 25 CRPF jawans were killed in a dastardly Naxalite attack earlier this week.