Security forces claim top Maoist leaders either killed or injured in 'Operation Black Forest'

Bijapur | Security forces on Wednesday declared a major success saying they have demolished the "invincibility" of the Maoists and killed 31 ultras in and around a treacherous hill along the Chhattisgarh-Telangana border in the biggest ever coordinated operation carried out by them to eliminate the menace by next March.

Chiefs of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Chhattisgarh Police, G P Singh and A D Singh respectively, along with senior commanders of the two forces addressed the media in this district, about 450 km from state capital Raipur, to assert that the top armed Naxal leadership was "either eliminated or injured".

Bijapur is one among the six most Naxal violence affected districts of the country.

The two chiefs said the 21-day long operation codenamed 'Black forest' that began on April 21 at the Korgotalu Hills (KGH) along the Chhattisgarh-Telangana border ended after 21 days on May 11 leading to killing of 31 Maoists including 16 women, seizure of 450 IEDs, about two tonnes of explosives, a number of rifles among others and ammunition.

Eighteen security forces personnel were injured in this operation.

CRPF director general (DG) Gyanendra Pratap Singh said the operation "achieved more than what was targeted" and the force is sure that they will meet the Union government's deadline of ending Left wing extremism (LWE) from the country by March 2026.

We are undertaking a "ruthless and relentless" strategy and this coordinated operation between CRPF, its jungle warfare commando unit CoBRA and Chhattisgarh Police's STF and DRG played its "best" role and will continue in the future.

"We have demolished their fort (under operation Black Forest) and we have demolished their invincibility during the operation at the KGH," Chhattisgarh DGP A D Gautam said.

Vivekananda Sinha, ADG (operations) of Chhattisgarh Police, said the operation has led to the "dislocation" of the Maoist leadership and their military formations had either "got divided or are sheltered elsewhere".

The highest in the hierarchy, the PLGA unit of the Maoists, according to Sinha, has "weakened" and those holed up in the KGH have either been eliminated or are injured.

Gautam said the "domination" of the security forces was increasing. The officials said the KGH had become a "hiding place" for the top Maoist commanders apart from being the headquarters of their weapons manufacturing unit and a large but scattered ammunition dump.

The forces found as many as 250 caves at the hills, used by Maoists to hide and store arms and ammunition, and found that the Naxals used the 60 kms long and 5-10 km wide KGH as a training and meeting base apart from using it as a medical facility.

The CRPF chief said the KGH was a "no go area" for a long time and the forces found IEDs were laced with beer bottles to cause maximum injury to troops.

Officials said as many as 350 armed Maoists were taking shelter in the KGH and it was estimated that they were there for about 2.5 years.

The officials said the joint security forces operated in temperatures as high as 45 degrees and encountered wild animals like bears, insects and the hard forested terrain.

Bijapur SP Jitendra Yadav said out of the 31 Maoists killed, 20 have been identified and they carried a collective bounty of 1.72 crore.