72.51 pc voting recorded in 2nd phase of LS polls in Chhattisgarh
To ensure the smooth conduct of the polls, over 2,22,000 security personnel were deployed.
At least 14 Naxals have been killed in an ongoing encounter with security forces in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma on Monday.
Security forces have reportedly recovered 16 weapons from the slain left-wing extremists.
The site of the encounter is within the Konta and Golapalli police station limits. Security forces suspect that more Naxals are hiding in the area.
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The encounter began when a joint team of Special Task Force of Chhattisgarh Police and the District Reserve Guard arrived in the area following information about the presence of around 20-25 Naxals in a camp.
Special DG, Anti-Naxal Operations, Chhattisgarh, told reporters that one area committee member with a bounty of Rs 5 lakh was arrested along with a female Naxal.
Earlier in July, security forces had killed two Naxals Sukma in an encounter which also left a jawan injured. The encounter happened on the evening of 11 July near Minpa village when a team of District Reserve Guard (DRG) was out on an anti-Naxal operation.
Minpa is around 500 kms from the state capital Ranchi.
In another encounter in the same month, security forces had gunned down as many as eight Naxals, including four women, in insurgency-hit Bijapur district.
In June, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a report titled ‘Children in Armed Conflict’ that terror groups, including Naxalites, are using children in their armed campaigns.
The report said, “The United Nations continued to receive reports of the recruitment and use of children, including by the Naxalites, particularly in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Naxalites reportedly resorted to the use of a lottery system to conscript children in Jharkhand.”
Children were also affected in other ways by conflicts like the closure of schools because of actions both by Naxalites and by securiy forces, Guterres’s report said.
“In Jharkhand, suspected Naxalites elements attacked one school in Khunti district, partially destroying it,” the report said.
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