Laxman Kewat

Some Lesser Known Facts About Laxman Kewat

• Laxman Kewat started working as a police constable in district Surajpur in Chhattisgarh in 2007 and was promoted to the position of sub-inspector in 2012.

  

• He learned guerrilla warfare from former Naxalites who were assistant constables. He used these tactics against the Naxalites.

• While posted in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, Laxman Kewat and his team shot more than 15 Maoists in an encounter.

• After this, Maoists began targeting him. His senior officers, concerned for his safety, transferred him from the area. He was posted in the district of Bijapur, Karnataka, from 2016 to 2018.

• On 3 August 2019, an encounter occurred in the Rajnandgaon district on the banks of the Bagh River.

  

• In 2024, Laxman Kewat played a key role in the Kanker encounter that happened between Maoist cadres of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) and Indian security forces in the district of Kanker, Chhattisgarh.

• He received information about a large group of Maoists gathering near Chhotebethiya in Chhattisgarh on 13 April 2024.

• On 16 April 2024, he led a security operation with various forces.

• During the operation, Maoist guards tried to warn their leaders, but Laxman Kewat and his team surrounded and engaged them in a four-hour gunfight, resulting in 29 Maoist deaths.

• He is known as an ‘encounter mastermind’ and has been credited with killing 44 Maoists before the Kanker encounter.

• After the operation, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai praised his contribution to the operation.

  

• In 2024, he became the station house officer (SHO) of the Pakhanjur police station in Chhattisgarh’s Kanker district.