NEW DELHI: Home minister Amit Shah on Saturday met and felicitated officers of the Chhattisgarh Police who played a key role in the recent anti-Naxal operations in Bijapur and Narayanpur that led to the elimination of top CPI(Maoist) leader Nambala Keshav Rao alias Basavaraju and 57 others.On X later, Shah said, “Met the officers who played a crucial role in the recent anti-Naxal operations and congratulated them on the historic success of these operations. I am eager to meet the brave jawans who made these operations successful with their courage, and will soon visit Chhattisgarh to meet them. The Modi govt is committed to freeing India from the menace of Naxalism.” The officers honoured by Shah, in the presence of Chhattisgarh CM Vishnu Deo Sai and Deputy CM Vijay Kumar Sharma, included Chhattisgarh DGP Arun Dev Gautam, ADGP (anti-Naxal operations) Vivekanand, IGP (Bastar Range) Sundarraj P, SP Narayanpur Prabhat Kumar, SP Bijapur Jitendra Yadav and SP Bastar Shalabh Singh.As part of stepped up offensive in the Maoists’ last bastions, the Chhattisgarh Police and the CRPF, with other state police forces, BSF and Indian Air Force, had undertaken a 21-day operation in April-May in the Karreguttalu Hills on the Chhattisgarh-Telangana border. The operation led to the neutralisation of 31 Naxalites, including some senior members of the dreaded People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army Battalion No. 1, and the recovery of a huge cache of arms and supplies. In another operation in Narayanpur on May 21, personnel from Chhattisgarh Police’s District Reserve Guard eliminated Basavaraju and 26 other Naxalites.