Maoists exploiting young girls and women, contraceptives seized from camp after encounter: Nabarangpur SP

While a high alert has been sounded in bordering Malkangiri, Koraput and Nabarangpur districts following a deadly Naxal attack in neighbouring Chhattisgarh, police personnel and Maoists exchanged fires in Nabarangpur district on Wednesday.

Sharing details about the encounter, Nabarangpur SP S Sushree said, “Two SOG teams of Odisha police launched an ant-Maoist operation on Odisha-Chhattisgarh border. A gunfight broke out between the police personnel and 20-25 armed ultras during the operation which lasted for around half-an-hour.”

“No one was hurt in the gun battle. However, a huge cache of Maoist articles including IEDs were seized during the operation,” Sushree informed, adding that, “The Maoists were exploiting the women. It was evident after huge amount of contraceptive items were seized from their camp during the search operation,” the top cop said.

Notably, Naxals blew up a vehicle of the District Reserve Guards (DRG) with an improvised explosive device (IED) near Dantewada in Chhattisgarh on Wednesday. Ten personnel of the DRG and the driver of the vehicle were killed in the ambush.

Meanwhile, Odisha Police has also decided to intensify combing operations in different Naxal-infested districts of the state following the Chhattisgarh carnage.