CRPF personnel dies in encounter with naxals

Gaya (PTI): A security personnel was killed and three others were injured in an encounter with Maoists in Bihar's Naxal-affected Gaya district, sources said on Tuesday.

CRPF Havildar B P Singh was kidnapped and shot dead after an encounter with the CPI (Maoist) guerrillas at Patthar- Lautia village, some 90 km from here close to the Jharkhand border, last evening.

Constables Mahipal Singh and R K Shahi, who received bullet injuries in the encounter, were convalescing at the Magadh Medical College Hospital here and were reported to be out of danger, they said.

A sub-inspector of the force whose name was not known yet was reported missing after the incident.

Meanwhile in combing operations launched this morning, a jawan of the Special Task Force of the Bihar police, who had received bullet injuries in his hand, was found from a forest area close to the scene of the encounter, the sources said, adding his Insas rifle had been looted.

Initial reports attributed to DIG (Magadh range) Praveen Vashisht said the fierce exchange of fire took place after the Naxalites ambushed a CRPF vehicle.

The place is not far from Raniganj where eight people including five jawans of the Special Auxiliary Police (SAP), a force raised specifically for counter-Naxal operations, were killed and an assistant sub-inspector of police died in an encounter with the Maoists last Thursday.