Between August 2016 and July 2018, 247 Maists have been killed in exchanges of fire. (Express Photo/Prashant Ravi/File)
The Anti Naxal Operations Wing of the Chhattisgarh Police on Wednesday said that Maoist documents and press releases show that 247 Maoists have been killed in exchanges of fire between August 2016 and July 2018. Senior police officials said that while the Maoists themselves admit to 116 deaths between August 2017 and July 2018, the number, by Maoist admission between August 2016 and July 2017 is 131. Several of these press releases have however painted many of these cases as “fake encounters.”
DM Awasthi, Special DG, Anti Naxal Operations said, “As per our records, over this same period, we have recovered 208 bodies. What that means is that there are at the very least 39 Maoists that were additionally killed, bodies of whom we could not recover in the jungles.”
Awasthi said that these numbers show that the Maoists are “on the back foot” and credited operations that are now being carried out in core areas. “This is happening because of our police, special forces and paramilitary troops. We have strengthened our intelligence network and the…
