Two days after 28 Maoists were killed in Odisha's Malkangiri district by special forces along the Andhra-Odisha border, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) has reportedly termed it a “fake encounter” and threatened to take “revenge” against AP chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu and his son Lokesh.
Writing for The Hindu, Rajulapudi Srinivas reported:
In a press release sent to the media and signed by CPI (Maoist) AP State committee official spokesman Shyam on Wednesday, the Maoists said the encounter was a major covert operation, in which 6,000 police personnel were used. He alleged that police utilised the services of some covert operatives to lace the food served to the Maoists with sedatives, and gunned down the leaders and dalam members after they fell unconscious. In the five-page release, the Maoists said they would also eliminate former Naxalites who joined hands with the police.
24 Maoists, including eight women, were killed by security forces in a gunbattle which also left a Greyhounds commando dead near the Andhra-Odisha border on Monday.
Acting on intelligence inputs, a combined team of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha Police carried out the operation in the Bejjangi forest in Odisha's Malkangiri district early in the day.
On Tuesday, the death toll of the Maoists rose to 28.
"The AOB encounter is a planned attack by the State and Central governments. In the name of law, Constitution and democracy, police are protecting ‘political fraudsters’ and killing Maoists with an eye on awards," The Hindu quotes the CPI (Maoist) letter as saying.
Top Maoist cadre Ramakrishna alias RK is also said to have managed to escape during the fighting.
Ten .303 rifles, two SLRs and four AK-47 guns and some Maoist kits were seized from the spot.
Meanwhile, in a separate development, the Hyderabad High Court on Wednesday directed Andhra Pradesh to file an affidavit for bringing the bodies of the Maoists to AP, after the latter claimed that the "area of offence was outside territorial jurisdiction".
The court was hearing a petition filed by the AP Civil Liberties Committee, which urged the court to book murder cases against the policemen involved, and demanded that the bodies be given to the kin of the deceased.