Three suspected Maoists were killed in a gunfight with security forces in Chhattisgarh on Tuesday morning, The Indian Express reported.

The incident marks the third armed confrontation between suspected Maoists and security personnel in a week.

The gunfight began around 8 am in a forested area along the boundary between the districts of Dantewada and Bijapur. Security forces had launched an operation in the area after getting information about suspected Maoists being present there, the newspaper quoted unidentified officials as saying.

The bodies of three Maoists, along with firearms and explosives, were found in the area, an unidentified police official told PTI. Intermittent exchange of fire between the two sides was underway.

With this, 116 suspected Maoists have been killed in gunfights with security personnel this year. In 2024, 217 suspected Maoists were killed by security forces.

On Thursday, 30 suspected Maoists and one security official were killed in two gunfights in the Bijapur and Kanker districts. The bodies of 26 suspected Maoists were recovered in Bijapur, while four more were recovered from the border area between the Kanker and Narayanpur districts.

A member of the Bijapur District Reserve Guard, Raju Oyami, was killed during the gunfight in Bijapur.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on March 20 that the Centre was moving forward with a “ruthless approach” against Maoists, and that the country would be “Naxal-free before 31 March next year”.

Malini Subramaniam has reported for Scroll that while many of those killed in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region in 2024 were declared by the police to be reward-carrying Maoists, several families dispute the claim. The families claim that the persons killed were civilians.