Maharashtra Home Minister visits Gadchiroli

Couple of days after the fierce 10-hour-long encounter between police forces and Naxalites in which 26 outlaws were killed in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra Home Minister Dilip Walse-Patil visited the Maoist-infested district on Monday and congratulated the officers and men involved in the operation.

“It is a major success…I congratulate and compliment all the officers and men involved in this successful operation,” Walse-Patil said as he felicitated the team involved in the encounter including the C-60 commando crack team on Saturday.

“They have done a great job. It is a big achievement. This will prove useful to maintain peace and take the development forward in this region,” he said.

The Naxalites killed include Milind Teltumbde, the Central Committee Member (CCM) of CPI (Maoist) and the in-charge of MMC Zone, which covers as vast expanse of Maharashtra-Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh in central India.

Meanwhile, state Urban Development Minister Eknath Shinde, who is the Guardian Minister of Gadchiroli, visited Nagpur and met the injured jawans. "We are carrying out extensive development in Gadchiroli," he said and appealed to the outlaws to surrender and join the mainstream.