Maoist dumps busted in Chhattisgarh's Gariaband; Rs 46 lakh cash, arms, laptop seized

Gariaband, Feb 28 (PTI) Security forces on Saturday recovered more than Rs 46 lakh in cash, a laptop, arms and ammunition from Maoist hideouts in a forested area of Chhattisgarh's Gariaband district, an official said.

The recovery was made from Sanpsati, a forested and hilly region, near village Badegobra under Mainpur police station limits based on information provided by surrendered Naxalites, the police official said.

They had given information about Maoist items hidden by senior ultras of the outlawed movement's Dhamtari-Gariaband-Nuapada (DGN) division, he said.

"Based on these inputs, identified locations were mapped and a joint team of the district police force's E-30 unit from Gariaband and the District Reserve Guard (DRG) from neighbouring Dhamtari district was dispatched from here," the official said.

During an intensive search of the marked forest and hill terrain, security personnel recovered Rs 46,31,500 in cash from different dump sites hidden in the hills, he said.

Firearms and ammunition seized included one muzzle-loading gun, 33 muzzle-loading rounds, one country-made rifle, 32 BGL (Barrel Grenade Launcher) shells, 10 rounds of INSAS rifle, 11 rounds of Self Loading Rifle, 45 rounds of AK-47 rifle, 41 rounds of .303 rifle, 23 rounds of single-shot rifle and 26 rounds of 12-bore gun, the official informed.

"We also recovered one laptop, two mobile phones, 13 electronic and 10 non-electronic detonators, along with a large quantity of Maoist materials and literature," he said.

As a result of the sustained anti-Naxal operations carried out by Gariaband police over the past two years, along with awareness drives about the state government's rehabilitation policy, the entire listed cadre of Dhamtari-Gariaband-Nuapada (DGN) division active in the region until January this year has either been neutralised or has surrendered, the official asserted. PTI COR TKP BNM