Bhubaneswar: Two soldiers of the security forces were killed in an encounter with Maoists in Kalahandi district of Odisha. Police said that five Maoists were piled into the encounter on Wednesday in the Bhandrangi Sirki forest area on the Kalahandi-Kandhamal border. Two officers of the Odisha Police Special Operations Group (SOG), Sudhir Kumar Tudu (28) of Mayurbhanj and Debashish Sethi (27) of Angul district were killed in the encounter, an official said. One of them was injured first and later died in hospital.

The body of another worker was found during a search operation in the area. He said that four women were also among the Maoists killed in the incident. The official said that all these belonged to the banned CPI (Maoist) Banasadhara-Gumsar-Nagabali section. SP B Gangadhar of Kalahandi said that six weapons were also found from the site of the encounter. Taking action based on an intelligence input, the SOG launched the operation on Tuesday along with the District Voluntary Force (DV), another official said.

He said that two joint teams of SOG and DVF were part of the campaign. The officer said the encounter started around 11 am on Wednesday. The firing lasted for about half an hour. Police said that in a similar operation, five Maoists, including two women, were killed by security forces in Sirla Reserve Forest area of Kandhamal district on July 5.

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