KUMUD JENAMANI
Jamshedpur, Oct 13: A fierce encounter took place between Naxals and paramilitary forces in the Goelkera Thana area in West Singhbhum about 160 km away from here on Friday morning.
Several naxals are believed to have been injured in the encounter which lasted for over half an hour.
The encounter started as the Naxals rained bullets on the police and paramilitary forces jawans who were carrying out a search operation for IEDs in the rebel-infested Kolhan forest division.
The police and paramilitary forces had resumed the search operation after they had recovered three IEDs in the Goelkera Thana area on Thursday evening, something which must not have gone down well with the Naxals. Thus, as the paramilitary forces started a search operation in the same stretch of the forest region, they had an encounter with the Naxals.
West Singhbhum SP, Ashutosh Shekhar could not be contacted for his comment as he is at the spot of the encounter.
It may be mentioned here that an unspecified number of the outlawed CPI-Maoist rebels, including some top leaders have sneaked into the Kolhan and adjoining Porahat forest divisions since January this year.
As the rebels have planted IEDs on the forest paths and other strategic locations across the twin forest divisions, the police are carrying out a special anti-insurgency operation to detect the IEDs for flushing the Naxals out.
