Ganesh Uike, a highly senior leader of the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) was killed in a gun duel with security forces in the Odisha district of Kandhamal, and this was a big blow to Maoist leadership in the area. Uike, the 69-year-old, was one of the six surviving members of the central committee of the outfit and he had a cumulative bounty of 1.1 crore on his head.
Officials in the police claimed Ganesh Uike was the top Maoist intelligence officer operating in Odisha and instrumental in coordinating insurgency in various regions. He worked under various names like Rupa, Rajesh Tiwari, Chamru and Pakka Hanumantu and strongly engaged in planning and organizing armed operations. Odisha Additional Director General of Police (Anti-Maoist Operations) Sanjeeb Panda indicated that Uike was the sole central committee member in the state and to begin with hailed originally of Chendur Mandal in Nalgonda district of Telangana.
The engagement was also a mass combined operation which was initiated as a result of certain intelligence information provided by the Special Intelligence Wing (SIW). Between 20 groups of Odisha Police Special Operations Group (SOG), two groups of the Central reserve police force (CRPF) and one group of the border security force (BSF) were involved in the operation. Along Odishi-Ganjam border, the combing exercise was undertaken in the Chakapad police station area, Kandhamal and the Rambha forest range.
Overall, 6 Maoists were shot in the process. Five of them were neutralised in Kandhamal, two others were shot dead earlier in the day by a mobile SOG group at Kotgadh. These latter were found to be Bari alias Rakesh, a member of the area committee, Sukma district, and Amrit, platoon member of the Supply Dalam, Bijapur district. On Thursday, when the gunfight was over, security forces found the bodies of four Maoists two men and two women in a thorough search of the forested region.
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