Jawan injured in Naxal encounter in Jharkhand, cache of explosives recovered in Ops

India Today

2 days ago

A fierce encounter broke out between the police and Naxalites in Jharkhand, leaving one personnel injured. Following the clash, the security forces recovered a cache of explosive materials, Naxalite uniforms, and other items from the encounter site.The confrontation took place in the Saranda forest of West Singhbum district in Jharkhand.During the encounter, Naxalites carried an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) blast, resulting in injuries to Sunil Kumar of the COBRA 209 battalion. He was immediately rushed to a hospital for treatment.advertisement
Despite the intensity of the attack, the police retaliated with heavy firing, after which, the Naxalites fled.According to sources, the cache of explosives looted on the Odisha-Jharkhand border in recent days has been recovered by Jharkhand Police in Tirilposi as the Naxalites kept firing at the security forces.West Singhbhum Superintendent of Police (SP) Rakesh Ranjan confirmed the incident and stated that a search operation is still underway in the area.The police recovered a large quantity of explosives during the encounter, which were looted by the Naxals near the Jharkhand-Odisha border. The Naxalites had attacked and looted a truck containing four tons of explosives from Banka mines in Odisha near the Jharkhand border.Odisha's Director General of Police himself camped in Rourkela for two days to investigate the incident by the Maoists. Meanwhile, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) is also investigating the loot.advertisementAccording to a press release by the police, top leaders of the CPI Maoist Naxalite organisation — Misir Besra, Anmol, Mochhu, Anal, Asim Mandal, Ajay Mahato, Sangen Angaria, Ashwin, Pintu Lohra, Chandan Lohra, Amit Dansda alias Upton, Jaykant, and Rapa Munda — are active with their squad members. These Naxalite leaders may carry out destructive incidents in the future.In view of this, the police have intensified the search operation in the area. In this operation, besides the Chaibasa police, jawans from CoBRA, Jharkhand Jaguar, and CRPF are continuously conducting search operations in the forested and hilly areas.Last week, as many as 30 Naxals were killed in an encounter with the security forces in Chhattisgarh. These included top Naxal leader Nambala Keshav Rao alias Basavraj, who carried a bounty of Rs 1 crore, sources said.Must Watch