Hyderabad: Police have tightened security for top leaders of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti in view of the threat of the outlawed Communist Party of India — Maoist to target them in revenge for Friday’s killing of 10 militants on the Chhattisgarh border.

The Maoists have threatened to intensify their attacks on TRS leaders including the Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao.

Ten Maoists, including seven women, were killed in the incident in the wee hours of Saturday. One junior commando of the government’s elite Greyhound Force was also killed in the encounter

The threat was issued in a letter purportedly written by Jagan, the spokesperson of the Telangana CPI Maoist.

He denied that the Telangana state Committee secretary Hari Bhushan and another senior leader were among those killed in the encounter and said that the police officials were making false statements to demoralise the organisation’s cadres.

“Comrade Hari Bhushan, Bade Chokka Rao alias Damodar and K. Raji Reddy did not die in the encounter as the police was falsely propagating”, the letter said.

Only two persons district committee member D. Swamy of Hanmakonda and Ratna were from Telangana and all others were from Dantewada and Sukma districts of Chhattisgarh, he said.

Directly targeting Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, the letter said he was ordering fake encounters to facilitate plans to redistribute water and land to companies.

The Maoists also held Chattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh responsible for the encounters, and called him a “Hindutva leader”, adding the two chief ministers were working to displace the tribal people from their lands.

It was a case of one-sided firing by the police and an unidentified traitor had tipped off the police about the presence of the Maoists, Jagan said in the letter.

It is first time since the formation of Telangana state and TRS coming to power that the party has faced such a direct and serious threat from the Maoists.

The letter came even as the police were in the process of identifying the dead.

The bodies of the slain Maoists were shifted by helicopter to the government hospital at Bhadrachalam for post-mortems.

The superintendent of police in the Bhadradari-Kottagudem district of Telangana, Amber Kishore, said the Supreme Court guidelines were being followed by forensic experts in performing post-mortems.

The team of forensic experts from Mahatma Gandhi Hospital, Warangal reached Bhadrachalam on Saturday.

On a petition filed by the state Civil Liberties Committee, the Hyderabad High Court ordered that the post-mortem be recorded on video.

Though the identities of the dead were yet to be officially disclosed by police it was believed that women included a doctor, Reni, from Bastar who had joined the Maoists recently.

Other women killed — Aitu, Kosi, Kamala, Indrvathi, Sukki and Somi — were also from Chhattisgarh, sources said.

Two more were identified as Mallesh and district committee member D Swamy alias Prabhakar from Hanmakonda in Telangana. Prabhakar, a bachelor of education degree holder, was under ground for the last 14 years.

Meanwhile Director-General of Police M. Mahinder Reddy, Intelligence Inspector-General Naveen Chand and other senior officials attended the funeral of Greyhound commando Sushil Kumar in Bidar, in neighbouring Karnataka, on Saturday.

They laid a wreath on his body and he was cremated with state honours.

Kumar was killed during the encounter with the Maoists on Friday and his body was airlifted by helicopter to Bidar.

He had joined the Greyhound force in 2014.