Firearms, ammo seized from forest after encounter with Maoists in W S’bhum

After an overnight exchange of fire with PLFI activists from Friday night in West Singhbhum, security forces seized a cache of firearms from a forest in Bandgaon police station area on Saturday morning. While there were no injuries reported, there were no arrests made as the Maoists retreated deep into the forest.
SP Ajay Linda said one 7.62 bore self-loading rifle (SLR), a .315 bore rifle, six 9mm country-made pistols, a double barrel gun, one magazine each of the 7.62 bore SLR and .315 bore rifle and 11 magazines of the 9mm country-made pistol were seized during the combing operation.
As many as 169 live bullets of the SLR gun, a sharp knife, a walkie-talkie, a thermal scanner and PLFI literature were among the other items that were found.
On Friday, personnel of the Jharkhand Jaguar and the district police were engaged in a search operation for Dinesh Gope and Jeevan Gudia of the People Liberation Front of India in Banda village when the cadres of the banned outfit opened fire at the security forces. In retaliation, the jawans fired back and around 100 rounds of fire exchange took place between the two sides.