Indian security forces yesterday killed at least 16 Maoists during a fierce gunbattle, police said, as New Delhi ramps up efforts to crush the long-running insurgency.
More than 10,000 people have been killed in the decades-long “Naxalite” rebellion, whose members say they are fighting for the rights of marginalized people in India’s resource-rich central regions.
Yesterday’s skirmish in Chhattisgarh state began after security forces launched a raid in the dense forests of Sukma, police chief P. Sundarraj said.
Photo: AP
“We have so far recovered 16 bodies from the Maoists,” he said, adding that the toll might rise further.
The gunfight was ongoing, and government forces had recovered a cache of arms including rocket and grenade launches, assault weapons and other rifles, Sundarraj said.
A crackdown by security forces killed about 287 rebels last year, an overwhelming majority of them in Chhattisgarh, Indian government data showed.
The Maoists demand land, jobs and a share of the region’s immense natural resources for local residents.
They made inroads in several remote communities across India’s east and south, and the movement gained in strength and numbers through the first decade of this century. At its peak, the rebels had an estimated strength of 15,000 to 20,000 armed cadres and were operating in districts equivalent to about one-third of India’s landmass.
New Delhi then deployed tens of thousands of troops in a stretch of territory known as the “Red Corridor.”
The insurgency is a shadow of its former self as a result of years of counterinsurgency operations. Indian Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah has vowed to eradicate the last remnants of the movement by early next year.
More than 110 Maoists have been killed so far this year.
Earlier this month, security forces shot dead 30 Maoists in two separate clashes. Another 31 were killed in a single day last month. The conflict has also seen scores of deadly attacks on government forces. A roadside bomb killed at least nine Indian troops in January.
A 2010 forest ambush in Chhattisgarh killed 76 paramilitary troops — the single deadliest attack on Indian security forces by the insurgents.
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