The 27 maoists, including 12 women, killed in an encounter with security forces in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur district were dreaded cadres carrying a cumulative bounty of Rs 3.33 crore in the state, an official has said.
In one of the biggest strikes on maoists, security forces gunned down Nambala Keshav Rao alias Basavaraju, the general secretary of the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist), and 26 other cadres during an encounter in the forested Abhujmad along Bijapur-Narayanpur inter-district border on Wednesday.
Two jawans of the District Reserve Guard (DRG) of the state police also lost their lives during the operation.
"Of the killed cadres, one was identified on Wednesday as Basavaraju (70), who carried a reward of Rs 1 crore in Chhattisgarh. The identities of the remaining were established on Thursday," Inspector General of Police, Bastar Range, Sundarraj P told PTI.
The operation involving personnel of DRG from Narayanpur, Dantewada, Bijapur, and Kondagaon districts was launched on May 18 based on intelligence inputs about the presence of Central Committee and Politburo members of the Maoists, as well as senior Maad Division cadres and PLGA (Peoples' Liberation Guerrilla Army) members, he said.
The gunfight took place on Wednesday morning after three days of searches, he added.
Jangu Naveen, a Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee member of Maoist who carried a reward of Rs 25 lakh, as well as four company party committee members (CYPCM) Sangeeta (35), Bhumika (35), Somli (30) and Roshan alias Tipu (35), who carried a bounty of Rs 10 lakh each, are among those killed, he said.
"The remaining 21 cadres, comprising three platoon party committee members and 18 members of PLGA company no. 7, carried a reward of Rs 8 lakh each on their heads. Of the killed maoists, three belonged to Telangana and two to Andhra Pradesh.
"Three AK-47 rifles, four Self Loading Rifle (SLR), six Insas rifles, one carbine, six .303 rifles, one Barrel Grenade Launcher (BGL), two rocket launchers, two 12 bore guns, one country made pistol, two muzzle loading guns and a huge cache of explosives were recovered from the encounter site," the IG said.
"Basavaraju also carried a reward of Rs 1 crore declared by the Union Home Ministry, Rs 50 lakh by the National Investigation Agency, and Rs 25 lakh each by the Andhra Pradesh and Odisha governments. It is estimated that he carried a total bounty of Rs 10 crore in all LWE-affected states in the country. Details about it are being collected," he added.
Known by the aliases of Gaganna, BR Dada and Prakash, Krishna, Darapu Narsingh Reddy, Basavaraju joined the outlawed movement in the 1970s.
A resident of Jiyannapeta village in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh, the top Maoist leader held a B.Tech degree from the then Regional Engineering College, Warangal.
Basavaraju took over as the general secretary of the banned outfit CPI (Maoist) in 2018, replacing Muppala Lakshmana Rao alias Ganpathy, then aged 71, who stepped down due to deteriorating health and age-related issues.
He was the founding member of the central committee of Maoists, an incumbent politbureau member and chief of the central military commission of Maoists, the IG said.
Basavaraju was an expert in military training, especially in the use of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and explosives and attacks on security forces and police stations, he said.
He was primarily involved in the 2004 Koraput (Odisha) armoury loot wherein three lives were lost, 1,000 advanced guns and 1,000 other weapons, worth about Rs 50 crore, were looted.
He was also involved in the 2005 Jehanabad jail break (Bihar) in which 389 prisoners, including Maoists and notorious criminals, fled.
He was involved in the 2010 Dantewada (Chhattisgarh) massacre, wherein 76 CRPF personnel lost their lives, the 2013 Jhiram Ghati attack (Bastar, Chhattisgarh) in which 27 people, including senior Congress leaders, were killed, and the murder of an MLA in Andhra Pradesh in 2018, the IG said.
Security forces have inflicted a major blow to Maoists with his killing, he added.
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