Naxal ‘commander’ killed in encounter

Central Chronicle News
Konta/Sukma, Nov 27: A naxal militia commander who was involved in at least nine deadly attacks on security forces was killed on Friday evening in an encounter in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district, police said.
Basta Bheema, the slain naxal, was carrying a reward of Rs 5 lakh on his head. The gunfight took place around 7 pm in a forest near Tadmetla village when a joint team of District Reserve Guard (DRG) of police and the CRPF’s elite CoBRA’s 201 battalion was out on an anti-naxal operation, Sukma Superintendent of Police Sunil Sharma told PTI.
When the patrolling team was cordoning off the forest near Tadmetla, over 400 km away from Raipur, naxals fired on them, he Humrah 201 corps of AC Vipin Singh Rawat from Cobra and DRG of DRG and joint party of COBRA, of AC Vipin Singh Rawat, had left for area domination of village Mukaram, Tadmetla of Konta block in view of the call for Naxalites’ bandh. During the return from the operation, at about 19:30 in the forest between Garhgarhmeta and Tadmetla, about 15-20 armed Naxalites opened fire indiscriminately with the intention of killing the police party and looting weapons. The police party also fired in self-defense in retaliation. During the encounter, the Naxalites were confronted bravely by the police party, due to which the Naxalites, seeing the police party getting overwhelmed, fled under the guise of jungle-tekri.
After the guns fell silent, the body of Basta Bheema was recovered from the spot.
Bheema was involved in several incidents including the Minpa attack in March 2020 where 17 security personnel were killed and the IED blast in November last year in Chintalnar area in which a CoBRA assistant commandant was killed and nine others sustained injuries, Sharma said. Police had received information that Bheema was among the cadres who were leading the Maoist group from the front during the Minpa attack. “The police were looking for him for a long time, the SP said, describing the encounter as a major success for security forces.