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Updated: Aug 28, 2019 17:04 IST

A senior Maoist leader with a bounty of Rs 8 lakh on his head and a policeman were killed and another cop was seriously injured in an encounter in Odisha’s Malkangiri district early Wednesday morning.

Deputy inspector general (DIG - Southwestern range) of Odisha police, Shafeen Ahmed said Maoist leader Rakesh Sodhi (40) was a native of Sukma district in Chhattisgarh and was the platoon leader of Andhra-Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee of Maoists.

The DIG said a team of anti-Maoist forces Special Operations Group and District Voluntary Force of the Odisha Police led by Malkangiri district police chief Khilari Rishikesh Dnyandeo launched a combing operation this morning after receiving input about Maoist camps in the dense hilly forests of Bonda ghati area of the district. The police had information about the presence of top Maoist leader and member of CPI (Maoist) central committee, Ramakrishna in the camps.

“As soon as the forces spotted the Maoist camp at Pakanaguda forest of Kadamguda grampanchayat, they came under fire from the 10 rebels there. The security forces retaliated. In the encounter DVF jawan Jay Singh Kabasi was killed and another jawan Ram Singh Durua was critically injured,” said Nayak. The injured policeman was airlifted to Vishakhapatnam for treatment.

The policeman’s death is the first casualty that Maoists have inflicted on security forces in Odisha this year. The police seized arms and ammunitions from the encounter spot.

Senior police officials said Rakesh was accused of multiple attacks on police including an attack in Mantriamb in Malkangiri on July 8, 2008 in which 17 SOG troopers and reserve inspector SK Mishra were killed. The slain Maoist was also an accused in an attack on a CRPF unit in a market in Malkangiri in 2007.

He was also allegedly involved in Janiguda landmine attack on a BSF contingent in 2012 in which four personnel including a Commandant died and was accused of murdering a police sub-inspector in the same year.

Maoist-related incidences have gone down substantially in Odisha since 2016 when 68 encounters and attacks took place. Last year, the number of such incidents went down to 54. Till June-end this year, 29 encounters between police and Maoists have taken place in Odisha.

On Monday, chief minister Naveen Patnaik in a meeting on anti-Maoist operations in New Delhi had demanded railway link between Malkangiri and Nabarangpur districts as well as infrastructure development in the fields of telecommunications and banking to defeat left-wing extremism. Patnaik said his government was willing to provide free land and also bear half the project cost for the railway line between Malkangiri and Nabrangpur.