The soldiers were reportedly ambushed by around 250 Naxals. Their bodies were found 24 hours after they went missing on Saturday.
Bastar| 17 Security personnel, who went missing after the encounter between Naxals and state forces, were found dead on Sunday in Bastar’s Sukma. Seventeen other soldiers were injured in this attack. A search party of 150-strong paraded through Jungle of Chintagufa, where the encounter broke put on Saturday afternoon.
IG Bastar P Sunderraj informed reporters that it was a joint team of STF, DRG and CRPF’s CoBRA teams which was ambushed by an estimated 250 strong Naxal force in Sukma’s Minpa area.
“It was a joint operation of DRG, STF, and CoBRA, in which more than 600 of our jawans were involved…It was a very tough encounter in which our estimate is around 250 Naxals were firing on our jawans from the other side,” said Sunderraj.
He further added that 5 teams of DRG and STF were heavily attacked but despite being trapped in an ambush, the soldiers kept their composure and did not panic in a crisis situation. If they had scattered, the casualties would have been much more. “Our jawans gave a fitting response. The Naxals were not able to break and scatter our teams. Still, we have 17 casualties and 15 jawans who are injured.”
Talking about the encounter that lasted for 3 hours, IG said, “Yesterday night we were able to evacuate 15 injured and today we were able to recover the bodies of 17 jawans.”
According to Police, the attack was led by CPI (Maoist)’s battalion no. 1, the most dreaded and battle-ready force head by infamous Naxal leader Hidma.
According to sources, the Naxals are expected to have snatched 15 guns from the slain soldiers-12 AK 47 assault rifles, 1 Under Barrel Grenade Launcher (UBGL), 1 INSAS rifle and 1 Excalibur rifle.
According to officials, a joint team of DRG, CoBRA, and STF initiated the operation from Chintagufa, Burkapal, and Timeleada after specific intel about Naxal presence in Elmagunda. The Naxals reportedly opened the fire on DRG while they were moving through the Korajguda hills.
“Usually we know that there is some movement of Telangana leaders in this area. But this time, we had hard intelligence that was so good that we felt compelled to act on it,” a source said adding that the teams were sent on a combing operation after they received an intelligence input of gathering of Naxals from nearby states like Telangana being held where they’d be meeting with the top brass of CPI (Maoist).
A local official said, “Arms and ammunition of the security forces have been looted but Naxals too have taken the hit. At least four to five of their leaders were shot when the forces retaliated.”
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