Raipur, May 9: Four Naxals, including two women, and a police official were killed in an exchange of fire in Rajnandgaon district of Chhattisgarh, police said on Saturday.

The incident took place on Friday night at Pardhauni village under Manpur police station limits, located over 150 kms from here, when a team of security forces was out on a counter-insurgency operation, Inspector General of Police (Durg range) Vivekanand Sinha said.

Acting on a tip-off about the presence of ultras in the village, security forces had launched the operation. Chhattisgarh: Naxals Snatch Part of the Ration Distributed to Villagers in Bastar Amid Lockdown.

"When the patrolling team was cordoning off the area, Naxals suddenly came out of the village and the encounter broke out between the two sides," he said.

"Police Sub Inspector (SI) S K Sharma, who was posted as the Station House Officer at Madanwada police station, lost his life in the gunfight," the IG said.

Bodies of the four Naxals were recovered from the spot along with an AK47 rifle, an SLR rifle and two 315 bore rifles, he said.

Reinforcement was rushed to the spot and bodies of the martyred official and the Naxals were evacuated out of the forest, he said, adding that search operation was underway in the area.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)