Two troopers drawn from the CRPF's elite CoBRA battalion were killed on Monday in a gunfight with leftist insurgents in a forested stretch in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh's restive Bastar, police said.

The gunfight broke out at around 10.30 a.m. at village Irapalli, some 500 km south of state capital Raipur. One Maoist insurgent was also gunned down in the encounter.

Officials at police headquarters informed that at least four CoBRA jawans were injured in the gunfight and were airlifted to Raipur for urgent treatment.

Chhattisgarh is one of the worst Maoist-hit states of India. Maoists hold sway in vast forested interiors of mineral-rich Bastar since late 1980s.

But in recent months, incidents of violence reported a sharp drop, mainly since the Congress came to power in late 2018.