An inspector of Madhya Pradesh’s Hawk Force unit, Ashish Sharma, was killed in a gunfight with suspected Maoists in a forested area near the Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh-Maharashtra tri-junction.

The Hawk Force is a specialised anti-Maoist unit of the Madhya Pradesh Police.

The 26-year-old inspector was shot allegedly by the Maoists during a joint operation conducted by personnel from the Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra police in a forest in Balaghat, the Hindustan Times reported.

Pankaj Srivastava, anti-Maoist operations deputy director general of police, told the newspaper that information had been received about Maoists hiding near Bor Talab on the border of the three states.

“Upon arrival, the police asked them to surrender but they started firing,” the Hindustan Times quoted Srivastava as saying. “The force also retaliated. In the gunfight, inspector Ashish Sharma, who was leading the three-person team, was shot.”

The inspector was taken to a hospital but succumbed to his injuries.

Hawk Force Commandant Shiyaz KM told The Hindu that casualties on the Maoist side were not clear yet as a search operation was still going on.

Sharma, who hailed from Bohani village in Gadarwara in Madhya Pradesh’s Narsinghpur district, was selected as a sub-inspector in 2016, the Hindustan Times reported. He had been posted in Balaghat since 2018.

Sharma had earlier received two gallantry medals for his service, The Hindu reported. He had also received an out-of-turn promotion earlier this year after he led an operation in February in which three women Maoists were killed in Balaghat.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav paid tribute to Sharma on social media and expressed his condolences to the inspector’s family.

“He [Sharma] displayed unprecedented valour and courage during an anti-Naxal operation conducted by a joint team of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Maharashtra in the forests of Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh,” the Bharatiya Janata Party leader said. “His supreme sacrifice in the national campaign to eradicate Maoists will always be unforgettable.”

Hours earlier on Wednesday, seven suspected members of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) were killed in a gunfight with security forces in Andhra Pradesh’s Alluri Sitarama Raju district.

This came a day after Madvi Hidma, one of the most wanted Maoist leaders, and five others were killed in the same district. The police had said on Tuesday that some Maoists had fled the site of the earlier gunfight and that a search was underway to apprehend them.

Separately, the Andhra Pradesh Police arrested 50 other persons suspected to be Maoists who had travelled from Chhattisgarh and Telangana.

The Union government has repeatedly vowed to end Maoism by March 31, 2026.

Last month, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs said that the number of districts across different states 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, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai said that in the past 22 months, 477 suspected Maoists were killed, 2,110 had surrendered and 1,785 had been arrested in the state.

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