Sixteen Maoists, five of them suspected to be involved in a deadly attack on a CRPF team last year, were arrested from Sukma district of Chhattisgarh, police said on Monday. There were two women among the arrested ultras, they added.
The arrests were made on Sunday from a hill near Minpa village under the Chintagufa police station limits by a joint team of the Special Task Force (STF), the District Reserve Guard (DRG) and the district police, a senior police official told agencies.
In view of next month’s Assembly polls, security forces have intensified patrolling in the interior forests of Maoist-hit districts to apprehend lower-rung cadres, who are instrumental in planting explosives to target police personnel and putting up Maoist posters and banners, he said.
Acting on an information about the presence of Maoists, the joint team launched an operation from the Burkapal camp towards Minpa and Tadmetla, located around 500 km from state capital Raipur, and apprehended the ultras, the police official added.
All the arrested cadres were active as members of either militia groups or the Dandakaranya Adivasi Kisan Majdoor Sangthan (DAKMS), a front organisation of Maoists, he said.
Of them, five — identified as Sodhi Ganga, Madvi Bhima, Banjam Nanda, Madvi Bhima and Muchaki Mukka — were allegedly involved in a deadly attack on the Central Reserve Police Force personnel at Burkapal in Sukma district in April last year, he said.
