Nine Maoists, including a few prominent leaders, were killed in a major encounter with the police in Kadapa district in Andhra Pradesh on Friday morning. Two naxalites were also killed in another encounter in Warangal district in the early hours.

Incidentally, Kadapa is the home district of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhar Reddy.

Giving details of the incident, Kadapa District Superintendent of Police Y Nagi Reddy told rediff.com, "It happened around 11 and 11.30 am. The encounter took place in Gopavaram reserve forest area near Badwel on the Kadapa-Nellore district borders."

The police party undertook combing operations in the area ion specific information that the Maoists were planning some violent incidents. The police party spotted a group of Maoists holding a meeting in the forest area.

On being asked to surrender, Maoists opened fire on the police party. The police returned fire. In the exchange of fire, which lasted half an hour, as many as nine Maoists - five men and four women - were killed on the spot.

"We suspect that there is CPI-Maoist state committee member Obulesu alias Appa Rao alias Raghavulu among those killed in the encounter. Others include Mallikarjun, a district committee secretary and Miss Prashanthi, a district committee member, of the outlawed organization," the Superintendent of Police said.

"The police recovered a dozen weapons, including one AK-47 rifle, three self-loading rifles, four .303 rifles, two carbines, one 8 mm pistol and one single bore barreled gun, from the scene of the encounter," he added.

The police suspect that some other Maoists managed to escape from the encounter site. The police also claim that "the Maoists have been virtually wiped out in Kadapa district," apart from suffering serious losses in entire Rayalaseema region.

Obulesu alias Raghuvulu was the senior most member of CPI-Maoist Andhra Pradesh state committee.

All other senior team members of the state committee were either killed or 'neutralised' through arrests or surrenders in the last few months. State committee secretary Burra Chinnaiah alias Madhav was killed in an encounter on July 23 2006.

Police got a scent of the meeting of top Maoists on Friday due to the unusual movement of Maoist cadres.

Being a top leader, Obulesu was being protected by a large number of cadres and the police realised that some major action was being planned by the Maoists. According to local reports, the slain Maoists include four men and five women. They have been identified as Obulesu, Mallikarjun, Ashok, Raj Babu, Miss Prashanti, Sandhya, Mani, Bharathi and Vijaya.

In another encounter on Friday, two Naxalites belonging to CPI-Marxist-Leninist (Pratighatana group) were killed near Jangoan in Warangal district in the early hours. According to police, the exchange of fire took place when a police party on combing operations in the forest area near Devarauppula came across a group of Pratighatana naxalites. The police returned the fire when the naxalites fired on them. The police suspect that some naxalites managed to escape.