Three personnel of Chhattisgarh’s District Reserve Guard and 12 suspected Maoists were killed in a gunfight in Bijapur district on Wednesday, reported The Indian Express.

Two other District Reserve Guard personnel sustained bullet injuries and are in stable condition, the newspaper quoted Bijapur Superintendent of Police Jitendra Kumar Yadav as saying.

The security personnel who died were identified as Head Constable Monu Wadadi, and Constables Dujaru Gonde and Ramesh Sodi.

With these deaths, the number of security personnel killed in Chhattisgarh this year has risen to 23, The Indian Express reported.

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The gunfight took place during a joint operation launched by security forces after they received intelligence inputs about Maoist presence in the area, the newspaper quoted unidentified officials as saying.

Teams from the District Reserve Guard of Bijapur and Dantewada, the Special Task Force and the Central Reserve Police Force’s Commando Battalion for Resolute Action were part of the operation.

The gunfight began around 9 am.

After the exchange of fire ended in the evening, security forces carried out search operations and recovered the bodies of 12 unidentified suspected Maoists.

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A total of 275 suspected Maoists have been killed in gunfights in Chhattisgarh so far this year, The Indian Express reported. In the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, more than 400 suspected Maoists had been killed in 2024-’25, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai had said in June.

In 2024, 217 suspected Maoists were killed by security forces in Chhattisgarh.

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.

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