RAIPUR: As soon as they matched steps, and bullets, with males. Now, they combat shoulder to shoulder with one another. Danteshwari Fighters – the primary all-woman anti-Maoist commando unit in Bastar – has remodeled from an experiment to a potent weapon.Blooded in fight, two of the ladies commandos have been awarded out-of-turn promotions for killing two Maoists in a gunfight. Beginning out as a unit of 16, the Danteshwari ‘Ladake’ at the moment are 97-strong. All of them volunteers. All of them prepared to take a bullet to save lots of a comrade in uniform or to guard their folks. Final yr, they celebrated Ladies’s Day by demolishing a ‘reminiscence pillar’ of a lady Maoist who was killed in an encounter. The insurgents had compelled villagers to construct the pillar in Jabeli village of Dantewada district, and the Danteshwari commandos pounded it to rubble. Earlier, they’d accompany safety forces on anti-Naxalite operations. Now, they run missions on their very own. Typically, they commerce their fight fatigues and jungle boots for saris to run surveillance and recce ops, hiding AK47s and pistols beneath their clothes.Head constable Sunaina Patel of Danteshwari Fighters – who would go on fight ops even when she was pregnant – is a type of promoted for gallantry. She and her colleague Reshma Kashyap gunned down two Maoists in Jallampal in Katekalyan in a fierce encounter.”It was like stepping into the den of death, but we went in and completed the mission,” Sunaina instructed TOI. She has typically felt the whizz of loss of life passing by as a bullet snaps the air. Does it scare the younger mom? “Once I was trapped in a Maoist ambush. It was a close one, but I narrowly escaped. When we are on a mission, we don’t think of anything else,” she mentioned, including that when she noticed bullets thudding into timber and the bottom subsequent to her, all she may consider was to push on, “take the fight to them”.”Very often, we are out on operation for 2-3 days at a stretch. Danteshwari Fighters are now deployed as road opening parties for projects on the crucial Kamarguda-Jagargunda route. We provide security to the construction team,” she mentioned. The unit is extending its operational attain from Dantewada district to the forests of Sukma and Bijapur.The commandos, a lot of them former Maoists or Salwa Judum victims, additionally convey a therapeutic contact to a inhabitants scarred by Maoist violence and infrequently far faraway from the advantages of correct healthcare. Ladies commandos skilled in area drugs go to distant villages, test villagers’ well being and administer treatment. Typically, simply the sight of a Danteshwari Fighters squad strolling right into a village is a confidence booster.When TOI spoke with Sunaina on Thursday, she mentioned they had been getting ready for cultural programmes to rejoice Ladies’s Day. “Chief minister Vishnu Deo Sai will attend the event. It’s like taking a break from guns and the jungle to celebrate our existence.” The ladies who strike concern within the coronary heart of Maoists, additionally wish to shake a leg. “Yes, we are practicing dance routines,” laughed Sunaina.
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