Indian security forces kill a senior Maoist commander and three fighters in Odisha, as the government intensifies its campaign to end the decades-long rebellion.
BHUBANESWAR: Indian security forces have killed a senior Maoist rebel commander and three other fighters in a raid.
Police in the eastern state of Odisha said they killed Maoist commander Ganesh Uike in a gunfight in Kandhamal district on Thursday.
The 69-year-old leader of the Maoist rebels in the coastal state had a bounty of more than USD 120,000 on his head.
Top state police officer Yogesh Bahadur Khurania said four bodies were recovered following the gunfight.
He identified one of them as Uike and said the other three, two women and a man, were also rebel fighters.
Their identities are being ascertained and there were no casualties among the security forces.
Two Maoist fighters were killed in the same state on Wednesday.
India has been cracking down on the remnants of the Naxalite rebellion, which began nearly six decades ago.
The rebellion once controlled nearly a third of the country, with an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 fighters at its peak in the mid-2000s.
It has been dramatically weakened in recent years, with over 500 Maoist rebels killed since 2024, according to the Indian government.
New Delhi has launched an all-out campaign against the insurgents and vowed to end the Maoist rebellion by March 2026.
