The importance of Abujhmad, where 31 Maoists were gunned down yesterday

According to security forces, Friday’s operation was conducted following intelligence inputs about the presence of Maoists from the East Bastar division. The intel alerted forces about the presence of company number 6 and platoon 16 of People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) — an armed wing of banned Communist Party of India (Maoists) — and senior members of Party’s Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee (DKSZC).

According to Inspector General of Police for Bastar Range, Sundarraj P, close to 50 anti-naxal operations were undertaken this year as part of “Maad Bachao Abhiyan – Save Maad from Naxalism’ campaign — including nine major operations since April this year killing at least 97 Maoists this year.

“This year a series of anti-naxal operations were conducted in the core of Abhujmad as well as in its periphery. These operations have dealt a significant blow to the Maoist activities in the region. The objective is to ensure that Maoists don’t get any safe zone in Abhujmad or any other region in Bastar. Now the Maoist leadership and the cadres are left with only option that is to shun violence and join the mainstream,” he said.

A Light Machine Gun (LMG) rifle, AK47 rifle, Self-Loading Rifle (SLR), INSAS and .303 rifle were recovered, the sources said.

Friday’s operation was even bigger than in April this year, when 29 Maoists were killed in an encounter in the Kanker district of Bastar division ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in the area.

In a significant achievement, security forces have claimed to have covered about 50 percent of Abujhmad – a largely un-surveyed land that’s bigger than Goa and has been a Naxal heartland since the 1980s.

Abujhmad, an area with a dense forest cover measuring around 4,000 sq. km, is largely spread across Narayanpur but also extends to small parts of Bijapur and Dantewada.

Being the main den of insurgent Naxalite movement, large tracts of the land remain un-surveyed – according to the government’s revenue records, only about 10 percent of the total land has been surveyed.

The April operation was followed by another one on July 2, when five Maoists who were part of the banned People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) were killed in Naxal heartland Abujhmad. According to sources, those killed in that operation allegedly provided security to top leaders of the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoists) and had a collective bounty of Rs 40 lakh.

A senior police official requesting anonymity had said then top Naxal leaders like politburo member and CPI (Maoist) general secretary Basavaraju alias Nambala Kesava Rao, politburo members Mallejula Venugopal alias Sonu alias Boopathy and Devji alias Tirupathi, central committee members Kosa alias Satyanarayana Reddy and CCM Ramachandra Reddy alias Gudsa Usendi are hiding in Abujhmad.

Since Chhattisgarh was created in 2000, this year records the highest numbers of Maoists have been killed in a single calendar year.