Raipur: Deep inside the thick forests of Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district, a hidden Naxalite weapons factory lies in ruins today, its machinery smashed and its stockpiles seized by a swift raid from the District Reserve Guard (DRG).

Acting on precise intelligence, the DRG team slipped through the undergrowth near the Koimenta-Erapalli belt and uncovered a full-scale ordnance unit that Maoists had nursed for months, hoping to arm a fresh wave of attacks.

What the jawans found was no makeshift shed but a camouflaged workshop humming under solar panels. Seventeen country-made rifles, each capable of sustained fire, lay half-assembled beside barrel-grenade launchers designed to shred patrols.

Piles of steel rods, trigger mechanisms, lathe machines, drilling bits and welding kits filled the cav

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