Three suspected Maoists were killed in a gunfight with security forces in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district on Friday, PTI reported.

The gunfight broke out at around 11 am in the hills near Rekhapalli and Komatpalli in the district, Inspector General of Police (Bastar Range) Sundarraj P told the news agency.

The operation was based on inputs about the presence of suspected Maoists in the area, he was quoted as saying.

This brings the total number of suspected Maoists killed in the state’s Bastar region this year to 192, the news agency reported. The area is a stronghold of Maoist militants.

As Malini Subramaniam reported in Scroll since July, while many of those killed in Bastar this year have been declared by the police to be reward-carrying Maoists, several families dispute this. They said that the persons killed were civilians.

The security personnel involved in the operation on Friday belonging to the District Reserve Guard, the Special Task Force, the Central Reserve Police Force and its elite unit Commando Battalion for Resolute Action.

A self-loading rifle, one sniper weapon, one 12 bore rifle, one muzzle loading rifle, barrel grenade launcher shells and ammunition were seized from the location of the gunfight, Sundarraj said.

“The identity of the killed Naxalites has not been ascertained as yet,” Sundarraj was quoted as saying. “The search operation is continuing in the area.”

On October 4, security forces had killed 31 suspected Maoists in a gunfight inside a forest along the border of the Narayanpur and Dantewada districts in the region. This reportedly marked the deadliest such operation in Chhattisgarh’s 24-year history.

The state was carved out of Madhya Pradesh in 2000.

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