A key Naxal leader, believed to be behind major attacks on security forces, including the recent one in Kanker district of Chhattisgarh, was gunned down on Friday morning along with a woman accomplice in an encounter near Raipur, the police said.

The two ultras were killed in a gun-battle with the police at Shivpur village of Durg district. However, another Maoist managed to escape, said R K Vij, inspector general of police, Durg Range.

Acting on a tipoff that Nagesh, a Naxal leader from north Bastar, would come to the village to procure ammunition in large quantity, the police reached the spot. When they tried to stop Nagesh, accompanied by two of his accomplices including a woman Naxal, he opened fire at the security men.

While Nagesh and the woman Maoist were killed in retaliatory firing, another one succeeded in fleeing the spot. The police have recovered bodies of the Naxals besides two pistols and Rs 45,000 in cash, Vij said.

According to him, Nagesh was behind the ambush on security personnel on August 29, in which three Border Security Force jawans and two policemen were killed, and practically played a role in all Naxal activities in Kanker district since 1998.

It is for the first time that Naxals have been killed in an encounter in Durg, which is in close proximity to the state capital. Durg hitherto had witnessed sporadic incidents of Naxal violence for last two years, the police said.