NEW DELHI: Indian security forces have killed 16 Maoist rebel fighters, including a senior commander, in the eastern state of Jharkhand as authorities step up efforts to quash the long-running insurgency.<\/p>\n
More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long rebellion waged by the guerrillas, who say they are fighting for the rights of marginalized indigenous people in resource-rich pockets of India.<\/p>\n
New Delhi has launched an all-out campaign against the insurgents, also known as Naxalites after the village in the Himalayan foothills where the Maoist-inspired insurgency began nearly six decades ago, and vowed to end the rebellion by March 2026.<\/p>\n
Since 2024, more than 500 Maoist rebels have been killed, including some of the top commanders, according to government figures.<\/p>\n
The latest gunfight was reported from West Singhbhum district in Jharkhand state, home minister Amit Shah said in a social media post late Thursday.<\/p>\n
One of those killed was a \u201cnotorious bounty-wanted Naxal Central Committee member\u201d named Patiram Manjhi, Shah said. He had a bounty of over $100,000 on his head.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are committed to eradicating Naxalism, which has been synonymous with fear and terror for decades, before March 31, 2026,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI once again appeal to the remaining Naxals to abandon the ideology that connects to violence, terror, and arms, and join the mainstream of development and trust.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Naxalite rebellion once held sway across nearly a third of the country, with an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 fighters at its peak in the mid-2000s, but it has been dramatically weakened in recent years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW DELHI: Indian security forces have killed 16 Maoist rebel fighters, including a senior commander, in the eastern state of Jharkhand as authorities step up efforts to quash the long-running insurgency. More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long rebellion waged by the guerrillas, who say they are fighting for the rights of marginalized …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":92655,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92643"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92656,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92643\/revisions\/92656"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}