Maoists attack 2 cops, loot rifles in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma: Police

Two jawans of the Chhattisgarh police were injured after Maoists attacked them with sharp-edged weapons at a weekly market in Sukma on Sunday morning.
The Maoists after injuring the jawans looted their automatic rifles and fled into the jungles, officials said.
The Sukma police in a statement said that the incident took place when the DRG jawans were deployed on security duty at the market in Jagargunda village.
“A small ‘action team’ of Maoists suddenly attacked the two personnel of Jagargonda police station with sharp edged weapons and then escaped,” said Sukma superintendent of police, Kiran Chavhan.
The SP said that after the attack the Maoists looted the weapons of both the jawans and fled.
“They looted one AK-47 and one self-loading rifle (SLR) from the jawans and fled away. We have launched a search operation and combing is going on,” said the SP.
The injured jawans were identified as Kartam Deva and Sodhi Kanna.
Both the injured personnel were admitted to a local hospital from where they will be shifted to Sukma for further treatment.
“Both the jawans are stable. One has injuries in his neck, and the other has injuries on his jaws,” said the SP.
It is worth mentioning that the Chhattisgarh police have recovered only 21. 5% of the total automatic rifles looted by the Maoists since 2001 in Bastar region.
As per the figures of the Chhattisgarh police, of the total 516 automatic weapons looted from the security forces between the year 2001 and 2024 (January) in Chhattisgarh’s Maoist affected Bastar division, the security forces have managed to recover only 111 automatic weapons, which is around 21.5% of the total looted automatic weapons.
Since 2001, at least 184 AK-47s have been looted from the security forces and only 23 were recovered by the security forces.
Similarly, 159 self-loading rifles known as SLR were looted by security forces in the same period and have been able to recover only 25.15%, 40 SLR from Maoists. Of the total 168 INSAS rifles looted by Maoists, the security forces could only recover 37 between the years 2001 and 2024.