Hours after the deadly Naxal attack left 73 CRPF personnel dead in Chhattisgarh, Maoists on Tuesday claimed for the first time that their top leader Kishenji was alive and well.

"Not a single state committee, Central committee or politburo member were killed or injured in the encounter with joint forces in Lalgarh on March 24," the Maoists said in a fax to PTI.

"On March 24, police attacked innocent people in villages at Lakhanpur, Salboni, Goaltore and Lalgarh area. Innocent people were killed in the incident, but not a single state committee, central committee or politburo member was killed or injured," the fax sent by the Orissa state committee of Maoists said.

The police and the government were trying to project that Kishenji was killed in the March 24 encounter at Hatiloth forest, it claimed.

"By doing so they want to demoralise the people, but they cannot stop the people's movement," it said.