Chhattisgarh’s conflict zone of Bastar on Tuesday witnessed the third mass surrender of Naxals in a month.
Chhattisgarh’s conflict zone of Bastar on Tuesday witnessed the third mass surrender of Naxals in a month. Twenty-three Leftw-ing insurgents, including three women, active in Darbha area under Bastar district, surrendered before the police at Jagdalpur, headquarters of Bastar division comprising seven Naxal-infested districts.
“All the 23 surrendered Naxals were functioning under the Malangir Area Comm-ittee,” Bastar district superintendent of poli-ce Rajendra Narayan Das said.
Of the surrendered rebels, Madkami Hidmo and Ando Madkam carried rewards of Rs 1 lakh each on their head.
Malangir Area Comm-ittee functioning in Darbha area has weakened considerably following killing of its acting secretary and military strategist Sonad-har in an encounter with security forces in south Orissa district of Malkangiri last month.
Of the surrendered rebels, six hailed from Kudum Kodra village, five from Chandragiri, eleven from Biaspur and one from Pangarpur village under Darbha valley area. All the villages are considered Maoist-stronghold.
In fact, Maoist leadership in Bastar was said to have mobilised cad-res in the villages under Darbha area to ambush the convoy of Congress at Jiram Ghati in the locality on May 25, 2013, in which 32 people, incl-uding 27 Congressmen, were massacred.
Earlier, Sukma had witnessed two mass surrenders in the current month. While 70 Naxals surrendered before the police along with their weapons at Chintalnar last week, 26 others decided to desert the red cadre and join the mainstream at Dornapal a month back.
