Nine Naxals killed in Chhattisgarh

RAIPUR: Nine Naxals were today killed in a fierce encounter with CRPF and state police personnel in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district.

Acting on specific intelligence inputs, a team of the CRPF's 111 battalion accompanied by two special police officers (SPOs) and four state policemen encircled the Maoists in the jungles of Jagargunda around 9 AM.

So far, nine bodies of the Naxals have been recovered, Superintendent of Police, Dantewada, S R P Kalluri said.

He said the encounter had taken place in thick jungles and he had not received any report of any casualty among the security forces.

The security personnel have also recovered arms and explosives from the site and a search operation is still on, the official said.

Dantewada has been a Naxal hotbed and security forces have been trying to conduct successful operations here after 75 CRPF personnel and a state policeman were killed in a deadly ambush by the Maoists in April.