Four Maoists gunned down in Bihar

At least four Maoists were gunned down in a fierce encounter with the security personnel in Bihar’s Aurangabad district on Thursday evening.

The gun-battle between security forces and Maoists, owing allegiance to the CPI (Maoist), began on Thursday afternoon in which more than 500 rounds of firing took place from both the sides.

After hours of gun-battle, the cops recovered bodies of three Maoists. It is suspected that the Maoists took away the body of the fourth deceased. Huge cache of arms and ammunition, including one Ak-47, one Insas rifle, one carbine, and a semi-automatic rifle, were seized from the incident site.

The security personnel team comprised Special Task Force (STF), CRPF and CoBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action). The cops formed a special team after they were informed that Maoist commander Abhijit Yadav was moving in the jungles of Deo (in Aurangabad).

A combing operation was launched on Thursday. In the meantime, the Maoists attacked the cops. In the retaliatory action, which lasted for hours, the Maoists had to beat a hasty retreat. But by then, four of their associates were gunned down in the Satandiya jungle, an area which shares border with Jharkhand.

“The area has been sealed. And a search operation is on to flush out more Maoists,” said Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Rajesh Kumar Singh.

Deo in Aurangabad is one of the Maoist-prone zone in Bihar where Maoists had earlier gunned down Narendra Singh, the uncle of BJP legislator Rajan Kumar Singh, on December 30, 2018. Before killing Singh, the Maoists had set ablaze his ten vehicles, including three tractors.