New Delhi : As many as 30 Naxals, including top Naxal leader Nambala Keshav Rao alias Basav Raj, who carried a bounty of Rs 1 crore, have been killed in an encounter with the security forces in Chhattisgarh. Basav Raj was also the General Secretary of the Naxals. The top Naxal leader, who was being hunted by security agencies across the country, was neutralised by District Reserve Guard (DRG) forces, sources added.
A major anti-Naxal operation was earlier underway in the forested Abujhmad region of Narayanpur district, where an encounter broke out between Naxals and DRG jawans, a police official said. The operation, which began on Wednesday morning in the forested Abujhmad area, involved DRG personnel from Narayanpur, Bijapur and Dantewada districts. Security forces reportedly surrounded top Naxal leaders in the exchange.
Naxalites opened fire when District Reserve Guard teams from four districts launched an operation in the area based on intelligence inputs about the presence of senior cadres from the Maoists’ Mad division, the official said. This comes just two weeks after 15 Naxals were killed in an encounter with security forces in the forests of Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district, near the Karregutta Hills along the Telangana border.
