Five security personnel, including two assistant commandants of elite Cobra battalion of CRPF, were injured in two landmine blasts triggered by Maoists and an encounter in Jharkhand's Latehar district today.
The Cobra personnel and Jharkhand police had launched the anti-naxal operation at Buda Pahar on the Jharkhand-Chhattisgarh border in Latehar district last evening.
There was information that four ultras, who were injured in a recent encounter with security personnel in Chhattisgarh, were being brought to Latehar through Buda Pahar for treatment, officials said.
Also that top Maoist leader Arvind, who carries a reward of Rs one crore on his head, along with senior LWE leaders Sudhakakran from Andhra Pradesh and others had assembled at Buda Pahar, they said.
The security personnel entered the Maoist hideouts in the dense forest in total darkness. Apart from Latehar, Garwah, Palamau district police force, Chhattisgarh police too took part in the operation led by SP Anoop Birtheray, police said.
The five security personnel, including another Cobra battalion personnel and two police sub-inspectors, injured in the encounter at Buda Pahar and Jaygir Pahari, were airlifted to Ranchi from adjoining Garwah district for treatment, police said.
The injured security personnel were identified as Assistant Commandants Varunendra Singh and Jitendra Singh, Havildar Subhash Shinde of Cobra 209 batallion and police sub-inspectors Prabhakar Munda and Vinay Kumar of Latehar.
The security personnel in the past had at least 12 armed encounters with Arvind and the operation yesterday was stated to be the biggest launched in Latehar after the recent visit by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.
Singh had held a review meeting with senior police and CRPF officials at Ranchi on the Maoist situation.
Security forces had killed six Maoists in an encounter at Karamdih on the foothills of Budha Pahar recently.
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