In a major achievement, security forces on Wednesday gunned down at least five hardcore cadres of CPI (Maoists) in Latehar, a few hours ahead of the visit of Chief Minister Raghubar Das for a review meeting on security related issues of Budha Pahar, considered to be a Naxal dominated area for several years.
Police said that the encounter took place in the jungles of Badgaon of Latehar at the borders of Manika and Herhanj police stations during a search operation conducted by a joint team of Jharkhand Police, Jaguar, CoBRA battalion of CRPF.
“Five Maoists were gunned down during a Police encounter which took place in the jungles of Badgaon in Latehar.
A massive search operation has been launched in the area to find out other Maoists who managed to escape taking advantage of the dense forest,” said IG (Operations) and Jharkhand Police Spokesperson Ashish Batra. On a tip-off that a large number of Maoists have gathered in the jungles of Herhunj to implement a major Naxal attack in the area, Latehar SP immediately formed a joint team of security forces and a search operation was launched in the area, said Batra.
“As soon as the security forces reached into the jungle, the Maoists started firing on them following which the security forces also fired on them in retaliation killing at least 5 of them, some of them are hardcore cadres,” said Batra.
Four out of five Maoists who got killed in the encounter have been identified as Zonal Commandar Shrawan Yadav, having a bounty of Rs 10 lakh on his head, Sub-Zonal Commandar Shivlal Yadav, having reward money of 5 lakh, Cadres Rajesh Yadav and Narsing, he added.
Palamu DIG Vipul Shukla asserted that a huge cache of arms and ammunitions have also been recovered from the spot, including 3 AK-47 Rifles, 1 INSAS Rifle and one .315-bore Rifle, besides lot of ammunition and other materials.
Meanwhile, the Chief Minister chaired a meeting with administrative and police officials of Palamu in Betla Wild Life Sanctuary and took stock of the Border Area Development plans, security-related concerns in Budha Pahar area and Focused Area Development Plans in left-wing extremism affected areas. Das, during the meeting, stressed on road construction to free Budha Pahar from Naxals and directed officials to generate opportunities for the youths in villages by connecting them with small employments.
“Due to lack of approach road, officials are not able to reach out to the villages creating a communication gap and ultimately making them deprived of government schemes,” said the CM. He also directed the police officials to cooperate in road construction.
“Connect educated youths of Naxal affected villagers with employment opportunities and fill up the vacant posts in schools, health centres and other government set up so that the development could be brought in those areas besides providing employment to the unemployed,” said Das. The CM also stressed on connecting women of such villages with JOHAR scheme promoting chicken farming among them which could be supplied to nearby schools and Police camps.
Talking about development of Betla Forest Area, Das directed the officials to plan developmental schemes only after taking suggestions from the villagers.
“To eradicate poverty, people must be connected to self-employment. Officials should reach out to the villagers and try to communicate with them to know their basic requirements for development,” said Das.