Ganesh Kendale
NAGPUR: Five Maoists were killed Monday during an eight-hour gunfight with C-60 commando units and CRPF quick-action teams that stormed the booby-trapped Abujmarh headquarters of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) in an offensive ahead of elections in Maharashtra next month.
At least 2,500 rounds were fired during the joint operation to overrun the once-impregnable Maoist bastion spread across the rocky, treacherous terrain of the Dandakaranya forest, 6km off Koparshi, the last village on the Maharashtra side of the border with Chhattisgarh.
The guns fell silent by sunset, enabling the 22 commando squads from Gadchiroli Police and the two CRPF quick-action teams to mop up and make a safe exit with the bodies of the slain Maoists, three of them women.
One of the more dramatic moments of the operation in Abujmarh, which straddles Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, came when a woman pilot of a hired Pawan Hans chopper braved shelling by the Maoists to hover a few feet above the encounter site and airlift a wounded commando to Nagpur via Gadchiroli for medical treatment. The commando, who took three bullets, was in a critical condition until late Monday.
The slain Maoists were part of PLGA’s “Company 10”, entrusted with guarding the dense forest and undulating terrain of Abujmarh, the nerve centre of Maoists in Central India.
The encounter spanned two sites 7km apart on the Chhattisgarh side of the so-called Red corridor. C-60 and CRPF commandos moved inside the forest three days ago and were combing the area for landmines before engaging with the guerrillas guarding the Maoist bastion and the outfit’s top commanders.
Sources said commander Prabhakaran, who heads the Gadchiroli division of PLGA, dodged past the commando cordon as his bodyguards provided cover.
Home minister Amit Shah had set March 2026 as the deadline for Chhattisgarh and Dec2025 for Maharashtra to wipe out Maoists from their states.
The weaponry strewn across ground zero included INSAS rifles, Kalashnikovs, and other assault rifles. A cache of ammunition, magazines, walkie-talkies, detonator wires, explosives, and other materials were also found.
Based on an intelligence input, commando teams crossed the Koparshi Nullah to venture into Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh, officials said.
Additional SPs Yatish Deshmukh and M Ramesh led a section each of the contingent. Deshmukh’s team engaged with PLGA near Tekameta hamlet, 2km off the Maharashtra-Chhattisgarh border, while the squad helmed by Ramesh cornered the guerrillas near Kodhur hamlet, 7km inside Chhattisgarh.
