India, April 1 -- When security personnel were firing bullets at Maoists in the Sukma and Bijapur districts of Chhattisgarh on Saturday, around 300 km away, a team of Chhattisgarh police and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) officers were putting finishing touches on another project that didn't make the headlines but could end up being the most significant victory for the government against the insurgents this year.

The troops built a 5 km stretch from Padamkot village in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur district to Kuwakodi village in Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district. At 5pm on Saturday, when the road was completed, the nondescript stretch pierced through the heart of the once-impregnable Abujhmad, reaching the Maharashtra border, and allowin...