Sukma (PTI): A Naxalite was killed in an encounter with security personnel in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district, a police official said on Friday.

The gunfight broke out on Thursday evening in a forest under the jurisdiction of Kistaram police station area when a joint team of security personnel was out on an anti-Naxal operation, he said.

Personnel belonging to the District Reserve Guard (DRG), Special Task Force and 210th battalion of CoBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action), an elite unit of CRPF, were involved in the operation, he said.

“One Naxalite has been killed in the gunfight, and an intermittent exchange of fire is still underway in the area,” the official said, adding that further details are awaited.

On Thursday, a CoBRA commando of the CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) and a Naxalite were killed during an encounter in the forests of Tumrel along the border of Sukma and Bijapur districts of the state.

In a major success on Wednesday, 27 Naxalites, including their top commander Nambala Keshav Rao, alias Basavaraju, the general secretary of the outlawed CPI (Maoist), were killed in an encounter with the DRG of the state police in a dense forest along the Narayanpur-Bijapur border.

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Bengaluru (PTI): Trends show Congress and BJP have maintained leads respectively in Karnataka's Bagalkot and Davanagere South Assembly seats, where counting of votes is underway on Monday, for the bypolls held for two seats on April 9.

The polls were necessitated by the deaths of senior Congress MLAs H Y Meti (Bagalkot) and Shamanur Shivashankarappa (Davanagere South).

According to the Election Commission, Congress party's Umesh Meti was ahead of BJP's Veerabhadrayya Charantimath by a margin of 9,969 votes in Bagalkot.

In Davanagere South, BJP's Srinivas T Dasakariyappa was leading over Congress party's Samarth Mallikarjun by a margin of 8,539 votes.

Nine and 25 candidates were in the fray, respectively in the Bagalkot and Davanagere South Assembly segments.