Narayanpur, 15 June

Eight Naxalites and a jawan of the Special Task Force (STF) were killed in an encounter in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur district on Saturday, police said. Two other STF personnel sustained injuries in the incident, they said.

A huge cache of weapons and other materials belonging to Naxalites were recovered from the encounter site, they said.

The gunfight broke out in the morning in the forest of Abhujmad, where a joint team of security personnel from four districts — Narayanpur, Kanker, Dantewada and Kondagaon — was out on an anti-Naxalite operation, a senior police official in Raipur said.

The operation involving the personnel of the state police's District Reserve Guard (DRG) and STF, along with the 53rd battalion of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and 135th battalion of the Border Security Force (BSF), was launched on June 12 in the forests of Kutul, Farsebeda and Kodtameta villages, he said.

The exchange of fire broke out when security personnel were cordoning off the area, and it lasted for a long time, he said.

After guns fell silent, bodies of eight Naxalites were recovered from the site along with an Insas rifle, a .303 rifle, a barrel grenade launcher (BGL) and other weapons and Maoist-related materials, the official said. "A jawan of the STF was martyred, and two others sustained injuries," he said.

The injured jawans were shifted to a local hospital and will be airlifted to Raipur for further treatment, he said.

As many as 131 Naxalites have been killed in separate encounters with security personnel in Bastar division, comprising Kanker, Kondagaon, Narayanpur, Bastar, Bijapur, Dantewada and Sukma districts, so far this year, police said.

On June 5, six Naxalites were gunned down in an encounter in Narayanpur, while seven Naxalites were killed on the Narayanpur-Bijapur border on May 23.

At least 12 Naxalites died in an encounter in Bijapur on May 10, and 10 cadres, including three women, were neutralised along the border of Narayanpur and Kanker districts on April 30. On April 16, 29 Naxalites were gunned down in an encounter with security forces in Kanker district, they said.