The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested two persons, including a woman, for the July 2019 attack on security forces by the Communist Party of India (Maoist) elements near Tiriya village in Chhattisgarh.
Six CPI (Maoist) operatives and one civilian were killed in the incident. The NIA took over the case on March 18, 2021, along with several other cases related to the allegation against the banned outfit that it carried out terrorist activities in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
One of the arrested-accused has been identified as B.Ch. Padma, who earlier operated as a divisional committee member of the CPI (Maoist) and was currently acting as a coordinator between front organisations and the outfit. The other accused is Dubasi Devender, who was closely associated with the CPI (Maoist) cadre. He allegedly worked as a courier for them and secretly transported their messages (both paper-based and digital) and facilitated anti-national activities.
The two were arrested by the NIA on June 18. The agency has so far arrested four accused in the case.
The encounter had taken place when a joint team of the local District Reserve Guard, Special Task Force and the Central Reserve Police Force was conducting a search operation in a forest near Tiriya in the Nagarnar area of Jagdalpur. The security forces had gone there on a tip-off that a group of Maoists had gathered with an intention to perpetrate a major incident on July 28, 2019, which is observed by the outfit as “Shaheed Diwas”.
Following the encounter, the security forces had recovered arms and ammunition from the site. The case was initially registered by the local police under the relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code, Arms Act and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
