Top Maoist with Rs 1 crore bounty among 3 killed in Jharkhand encounter

NEW DELHI: Sahdeo Soren, a Central Committee member of the banned CPI (Maoist) and one of its most wanted leaders, was killed in an encounter on Monday with a joint team of the CoBRA battalion and police forces from Giridih and Hazaribagh districts. Soren carried a reward of Rs 1 crore on his head.According to officials, the gun battle also claimed the lives of two other Maoist commanders — Raghunath Hembram Chanchal and Birsen Ganjhu Ramkhelawan. The operation was launched after intelligence inputs about Maoist presence in the region, and security forces engaged the insurgents in a fierce exchange of fire.Earlier, on Sunday and Saturday, similar incidents occurred in Jharkhand and Maharashtra, where two Maoists were killed or apprehended in encounters.On Sunday, a 38-year-old commander of the TPSC, a CPI (Maoist) splinter group, carrying a bounty of Rs 5 lakh, was killed in an encounter with security forces in Jharkhand’s Palamu. The militant, identified as Mukhdev Yadav alias Toofan, had been involved in the killing of two policemen in the Keydaal jungle on September 3.A day earlier, on Saturday, notorious Maoist Shankar Mahaka (32), carrying a Rs 2 lakh bounty, was arrested in the Tekameta jungle of Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district. Mahaka, wanted by the NIA for the murder of a civilian in 2023, had been scouting for attacks on security outposts when he was nabbed by a joint team of C-60 commandos and local police.(With inputs from agency)