A District Reserve Guard (DRG) jawan from Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district was killed in an improvised explosive device (IED) blast on Wednesday, hours after security personnel gunned down 27 Maoists, including top leader Nambala Keshava Rao alias Basavaraju (70), in a major operation in the Abujhmad region.

The IED blast took place at around 7 pm, when the forces were returning after completing the operation in the afternoon. However, it is not clear whether the deceased jawan, Ramesh Hemla, was carrying out searches or returning from the morning’s encounter.

According to officials, he accidentally stepped on an IED and died on the spot in the explosion.

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Earlier, during the operation, another DRG jawan was killed in an IED blast. That jawan, Khotluram Korram (38), was from Bhatbeda village in Orcha, Narayanpur district.

The encounter on Wednesday morning was the result of a three-day-long operation carried out by DRG teams from four Chhattisgarh districts after getting intelligence inputs about the presence of Maoists, including key leaders like Basavaraju, in Abujhmad — a remote and largely unmapped expanse of forestland spanning parts of Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra. The forces surrounded the Maoists between Indravati National Park in Bijapur district and Orcha in Narayanpur district.

Since its inception, the DRG has been at the forefront of anti-Maoist operations in Chhattisgarh, and several jawans from the unit have lost their lives fighting Left Wing Extremism. In January this year, four DRG personnel and four from Bastar Fighters — another force that specialises in fighting Maoists — were killed, along with a driver, when Maoists attacked their vehicle in the jungles of Kutru in Bijapur.

With Wednesday’s encounter, the number of Maoists killed in Chhattisgarh this year has touched 200.

© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd

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