Three personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), two of them commandos of the elite jungle warfare unit CoBRA, were killed and 15 injured in an encounter with Maoists along the boundary of Sukma and Bijapur districts in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh on Tuesday. Six Maoists were killed in the retaliatory fire, the police said.
The shoot-out happened on the first day of a newly established security camp in Teklagudem village, a Maoist stronghold about 450 km from capital Raipur. The attackers were over 500 in number, Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai said in the evening. He spoke to some of the injured jawans hospitalised in Raipur. Some accounts had pegged the number at even 1,000, the Chief Minister added.
