Bodies of 17 security personnel found a day after they went missing following an encounter in Bastar’s Sukma with Maoists. Seventeen security personal were injured in the attack. According to reports, a 150-strong search party combed the jungles around Chintagufa to locate the missing men.
“Bodies of 17 security personnel were recovered by a search team and were being evacuated from forests,” Inspector General of Police (Bastar range) Sundarraj P told PTI.
P Sunderraj told reporters in Bastar that a joint team of STF, DRG and CRPF’s CoBRA team were ambushed by an estimated 250 strong Naxal force in Sukma’s Minpa area on Saturday afternoon. “It was a joint operation of DRG, STF and CoBRA, in which more than 600 of our jawans were involved…It was a very tough encounter in which our estimate is around 250 Naxals were firing on our jawans from the other side.”
The IG said that the encounter lasted for about three hours. “Yesterday night we were able to evacuate 15 injured and today we were able to recover the bodies of 17 jawans,” Sunderraj said.
Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi strongly condemned the Maoist attack in Sukma, Chhattisgarh. He paid tribute to the security personnel martyred in the attack and in a tweet he wrote, “Condolences to the bereaved families. I pray for a quick recovery of those injured.”
