Police raid Maoist hideout in Deogarh

BHUBANESWAR: Security forces and Maoists were engaged in a fierce gunbattle in the forests of Barkote in Deogarh district, around 300 km from here, on Thursday.
The operation, involving the district police, Special Operations Group (SOG) and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), started early in the morning.
SP (Deogarh) Sarah Sharma said the security forces destroyed a camp of the rebels near Khuntadihi village and seized huge quantities of arms and ammunition.
"We are not disclosing the details at this stage. I can only confirm that a camp of the rebels was destroyed in the joint operation, following specific intelligence inputs," said Sharma.
The SP said police will come out with details of the incident on Friday. She declined to speak about possible casualties and injuries on either side and the number of personnel engaged in the encounter, which was still on till filing of this report.
Police sources said security forces left for their target on Wednesday night. It cordoned off the camp area and asked the Left-wing extremists to surrender. When the extremists started firing, the forces retaliated.
Deogarh district has not witnessed any significant police action since 2007. The encounter site on Sundargarh-Angul-Deogarh axis is long considered a transit point of rebels because of forest patches and link with Saranda forest in Jharkhand though no camp was detected in the locality in recent years.
The latest police action comes around a fortnight after DGP Sanjeev Marik, during his Sambalpur visit on June 20, said Maoist activities in the Sambalpur-Deogarh-Sundargarh region was on the wane.