India, June 7 -- Civil rights activists and the Telangana civil rights association on Saturday alleged that Chhattisgarh police had taken Maoist leaders into custody in Bijapur and were killing them one by one in staged encounters. Police, however, dismissed the allegations, stating that all actions were lawful and carried out in strict accordance with operational protocols.

This comes after the security forces killed senior leader of the banned CPI (Maoist) and a Central Committee member (CCM) Sudhakar in an encounter in the forests of Bijapur, and top Maoist leader Bhaskar in the Indravati National Park area in Bijapur on Thursday - two weeks after they gunned CPI (Maoist) general secretary Nambala Keshav Rao alias Basavaraju was gunne...