Chhattisgarh: Encounter With Naxals Turns Deadly, Infant Killed, Mother And 2 Jawans Injured

The injured woman and the two jawans have been hospitalised, and a search operation including officials from the DRG and the Central Reserve Police Force is underway.

An official claimed a 6-month-old girl was killed and her mother was injured in shooting between security forces and Naxalites in Bijapur, Chhattisgarh, on Monday, which also injured two District Reserve Guard jawans, news agency PTI reported. According to the official, the gunfight occurred at 5 p.m. in a forest near Mutvandi hamlet under Gangaloor police station boundaries while a DRG squad was out on an anti-Naxal operation.

The injured woman and the two jawans have been hospitalised, and a search operation including officials from the DRG and the Central Reserve Police Force is underway, he added.

Speaking with media, Bijapur's Additional SP Vaibhav Banker stated: “In Bijapur district, a skirmish between the police and naxalites took place. In the cross firing, two members of the DRG (District Reserve Guard) were injured, a child was killed and his mother received a gunshot wound for which she was taken to the hospital by the police. Search operation is on to find the culprits."

The encounter began a day after the announcement of a large movement of BSF soldiers. According to official sources, three battalions of the BSF with over 3,000 personnel will cross the border from Odisha to Chhattisgarh, and an equal number of ITBP units will move into the Naxal stronghold of Abujhmad as part of a strategy to intensify anti-Maoist operations in their last strongholds.
 
The new operational roadmap is part of a plan that has lately seen Union Home Minister Amit Shah declare that India is "on the verge of" eradicating Left Wing Extremism (LWE).

"The last strike against LWE by forces such as the BSF, the CRPF and the ITBP is in the process. We are determined to end Naxalism in the country," Shah made the remark on December 1 at Hazaribag, Jharkhand, while speaking to BSF men on their 59th rising day. 

These are known as central armed police forces (CAPFs).
 
According to security sources, the boundary Security Force (BSF) has been authorised to build six new COBs, or company operating bases, in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur district by first relocating one of its battalions from Odisha's Malkangiri, close across the inter-state boundary. A BSF battalion might have over 1,000 men.
 
The Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), which now has roughly eight battalions in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur, Rajnandgaon, and Kondagaon districts, has been instructed to relocate one unit farther within Abujhmad's main territory.