Security personnel on Sunday gunned down five Maoists in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur and recovered a cache of weapons, explosives and automatic firearms, sources in the Union home ministry said.

The encounter took place inside the dense forest of the Indravati National Park.

Acting on a tip-off about the presence of Maoists in the area, multiple teams of security personnel had gone into the park late on Saturday, sources said. The encounter broke out on Sunday morning with intermittent firing continuing for hours.

Around 12.30pm, security forces said three bodies clad in uniforms of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) were recovered. Automatic firearms, explosives and other weapons were also found at the site. Later, two more bodies were found. Two of the deceased rebels are women.

A combing operation is underway inside the forest.

The encounter comes a day after a CRPF jawan suffered grave injuries when an improvised explosive device (IED) planted by Maoists went off in Bijapur.

Sources said head constable Rakesh Kulur, belonging to the CRPF’s 196 battalion, was conducting an area domination exercise when the blast took place. Kulur suffered injuries in his legs and abdomen and is being treated at the Bijapurdistrict hospital.

On Thursday, three Maoists were killed in an encounter in Sukma district.

Sources said the deceased included IED expert Mahesh Korsaz, a Maoist deputy commander of platoon 30 who was earlier a part of the PLGA’s battalion 1 — the strongest group ofarmed rebels.

Security forces have launched a massive offensive aided by drones in retaliation to the recent killing of eight police commandos and their driver last Monday. The District Reserve Guard team — an anti-insurgency unit of the state police that lost eight men — was conducting an operation along with a special task force and the CoBRA when they were ambushed at Kutru inBijapur district.

A total of 14 Maoists have been killed in separate encounters in Chhattisgarh so far this year.

During a three-day anti-Maoist operation by security forces in Abujhmad forest on the border of Narayanpur-Dantewada-Bijapur districts that concluded on January 6, five Maoists, including two women,were killed.

On January 3, a Maoist was killed in an encounter with security personnel in Gariaband district, which falls under the Raipur division.

Last year, 219 Maoists were neutralised by the security forces in separate encounters in the state.

Bastar, Bijapur, Narayanpur, Kanker, Sukma, Dantewada and Kondagaon are the seven districts worst hit by the Maoist insurgency in Chhattisgarh.

Sources said the security forces were using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for reconnaissance and taking real-time images of the “liberated zone” inside the dense Abujhmad forest spread over 3,900sqkm in southern Chhattisgarh.

Intelligence reports suggest the rebels are in complete control of the extensively booby-trapped forests where they have set up multiple camps that provide arms training to recruits.

One of the biggest successes of the security forces against the Maoists came in October last year when 31 rebels were killed in an encounter inside Abujhmad, which the troops usually find difficult to enter.