New Delhi [India], April 17 : A day after 29 Naxals were killed in an encounter in Kanker, former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel congratulated the security forces.
"I congratulate the security forces who fought bravely and achieved success in this operation. This is a result of the policies we brought during our government," he said.
Hailing the security forces, he said that it is satisfactory that no security personnel have been killed. Three were injured."
Earlier, Baghel, who is also a Congress candidate in the Lok Sabha elections, was the first to raise doubts, claiming that there had been several fake encounters during the BJP regime in the state and that even innocent villagers were arrested on the grounds of being Naxals. Baghel said that the police had been threatening villagers as well. He claimed that during his tenure, several Naxals had been killed or surrendered.
The charges were repeated by Chhattisgarh State Congress Chief Deepak Baij, who said that the government should make it clear that all 29 were naxals only, or that some villagers were also in the fatalities.
Notably, IG Bastar P Sundarraj said that the autopsy of the bodies was on and a large cache of arms and ammunition was recovered from the Naxal cadre.
"Yesterday, an encounter broke out between security forces and Naxalites, which lasted for around 4 hours...Teams of DRG and BSF cordoned off the area and as a result, 29 CPI Maoist bodies were recovered, out of which 15 were female and 14 were male. Arms and ammunition were recovered in large quantities from the spot. The autopsy of the bodies of the Maoists is underway," IG Sundarraj said.
The killing of 29 Naxals is one of the biggest counter-Naxal operations in recent times.