Split among naxals and lucrative government schemes helped police in getting concrete information against naxals active in Maharashtra, said Director General of Police (DGP) Satish Mathur on Monday. In the past five years alone, 605 naxals surrendered before the police while as many as 53 naxals were gunned down in police encounters, he said.
On receipt of specific information through local intelligence that naxals have camped in Tadgaon forest near Bhamragad tehsil, two specialised troops of anti-Naxal squad C-60 swooped down in the area and engaged naxals in a gun battle on Sunday morning.
"After around 90 minutes of gun-battle, 16 naxals were killed. Eleven of them have been identified of which, two are prominent DVC level naxals. Those killed had a collective reward of Rs 76 lakh reward on them," said Mathur, adding "It is unlikely that more bodies would be recovered. We have seized AK 47, SLR, 12 bore rifles from them."
He clarified that since the deceased naxals were operating under the Dandakaranya scheme, no direct linkage of them with urban naxalism has surfaced as of now.
Addressing deceased naxals as Shaheed (martyr), DGP Mathur said "Sainath who got shaheed was also a Divisional Commander. He was one of the main organiser of the incident wherein 80 vehicles, including 76 trucks at an iron ore mine site at Surjagarh at Gadchiroli were set ablaze. Sainath had 75 cases registered against him."
"This was one of the most active dalams, and were indulging in cross border crimes as well. We cannot say specifically who they were targeting. because of the split that has developed among them (naxals) we have been getting pinpointed information. We have given Rs 1 crore reward to those who gave concrete information in past two years. Information coming is exact now. In past few months we have seized Rs 3.70 crores in cash which was being used for this kind of activities. We expect in few months a good amount of surrenders," said Mathur.
He concluded that, the police involved in anti-naxal operations are now armed with Underbarrel Grenade Launchers (UBGL), night vision binoculars, thermal imagers, bullet resistant helmets and jackets and are trained by National Security Guards in bomb disposal, which helped them to a great extent in tackling naxalites in the region.
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