Chhattisgarh, June 15:At least eight left-wing cadres and an STF jawan were killed in an encounter in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur district on Saturday.
Two STF personnel reportedly sustained injuries in the incident.
Police sources said, a gunfight broke out in the morning in the forest of Abhujmad, where a joint team of security personnel from four districts Narayanpur, Kanker, Dantewada and Kondagaon was out on an anti-Naxalite operation.
The operation involving the personnel of the state police's District Reserve Guard (DRG) and STF, along with the 53rd battalion of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and 135th battalion of the Border Security Force (BSF), was launched on June 12 in the forests of Kutul, Farsebeda and Kodtameta villages, he said.
After a rigorous gunfight, bodies of eight Naxalites were recovered from the spot. Meanwhile, a jawan of the STF was martyred, and two others sustained injuries. A huge cache of weapons and other materials belonging to Naxalites were also recovered from the encounter site, they said. Among the seizures, there was an Insas rifle, a .303 rifle, a barrel grenade launcher (BGL) and other weapons and Maoist-related materials, a police official said.
The injured jawans were shifted to a local hospital and will be airlifted to Raipur for further treatment, he said.