Security forces are said to have killed a senior military commander of India's Maoist rebels in the country's eastern jungle, the Indian government has said.
Koteshwar Rao, known as Kishenji, had fought a three-year battle with the state governments of West Bengal and Jharkhand. According to the government, he was shot dead after a 30-minute gunfight in the Burisole forests of West Midnapore district, 10km from the Bengal-Jharkhand border.
Kishenji was known to be the third in command of the Maoist guerrillas and would be the latest in a series of senior leaders of the movement to be killed.
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"Officers on the spot said it was Maoist leader Kishenji ... 99 per cent sure it was Kishenji." - RK Singh, Indian interior minister |
The Maoists, also known as Naxalites after the village of Naxalbari where the group started in the late 1960s, have a presence in roughly one-third of India's administrative districts.
The group has been described by Manmohan Singh, India's prime minister, as a major strategic security threat to the country.
'Huge vacuum'
India's interior ministry on Friday confirmed a man was killed in a firefight during an operation to capture the leader.
"Officers on the spot said it was Maoist leader Kishenji ... 99 per cent sure it was Kishenji," RK Singh, India's interior minister, told the PTI news agency.
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