By IANS,
Raipur : At least two Maoists were killed in a gunbattle with the police in a dense jungle in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region Monday, police said.
“Two bullet-ridden bodies of Maoists were found at the battle site with their guns,” a senior officer at the police headquarters here told IANS.
He said the police did not suffer any casualties and personnel were combing the area to recover more bodies, if any.
The gunbattle began around 9.30 a.m. in Kesamundi forest of Bijapur district, about 450 km from here, when Maoists fired at a joint combing team of the District Force (DF), Chhattisgarh Armed Force (CAF) and the Special Task Force (STF).
The Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist), that has an estimated 10,000 cadres armed with AK-47s and rocket launchers, has been holding a week-long shutdown in Chhattisgarh since July 28.
The rebels have given the shutdown call to protest police offensives against them. They have also opposed the setting up a training camp of the army in Bastar region.