Six suspected Maoists were killed in a gunfight with security forces in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district on Tuesday.

The exchange of fire broke out at about 10 am between the suspected Maoists and a joint team of the District Reserve Guard and the Special Task Force in the Indravati National Park, which is spread across 2,799 square km and remains one of the few hideouts left for Maoists in the Bastar region.

Since then, intermittent firing has been going on in the area, The Indian Express reported.

The gunfight took place during a joint security operation that began after input was received about the presence of Maoists in the national park.

Sundarraj P, inspector general of police for the Bastar range, told the newspaper that the bodies of the six suspected Maoists have been recovered.

Bijapur Superintendent of Police Jitendra Yadav added that weapons, explosive material and other Maoist-related items had also been recovered from the site.

Sundarraj said that since the operation was still going on, the location of the site, the number of security forces involved and other related details cannot be shared to ensure the safety of the personnel on the ground, The Hindu reported.

Additionally, personnel from the District Reserve Guard, the Special Task Force, the Bastar Fighters, the Central Reserve Police Force and the Chhattisgarh Armed Police Force have been dispatched to the surrounding areas to cordon off other Maoist cadres.

Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai said that the development on Tuesday was a “major success for the security forces’ personnel in the direction of completely destroying Red Terror”.

“It is the resolve of the dynamic Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi Ji and the Honorable Union Home Minister Shri Amit Shah Ji that they will end Naxalism from the country-state by 31 March 2026,” Sai said on social media. “We are succeeding in fulfilling this resolve, and Naxalism is counting its last breaths.”

Last month, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs said that the number of districts affected by “Left-wing extremism” has come down to 11 from 18 in March.

In 2025, the number of “most affected” districts has also come down from six to three, it added. These are Bijapur, Sukma and Narayanpur in Chhattisgarh.

On October 16, Sai also said that over the past 22 months, 477 suspected Maoists were killed, 2,110 had surrendered and 1,785 had been arrested in the state.

This year alone, 259 suspected Maoists have been killed by security forces in the state.

Malini Subramaniam has reported for Scroll that while many of those killed in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region in 2024 were declared by the police to be reward-carrying Maoists, several families dispute the claim. The families claim that the persons killed were civilians.

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