Three senior leaders of the CPI (Maoist) were killed in an exchange of fire with police in Andhra Pradesh’s Alluri Sitarama Raju district on Wednesday.
The firefight took place in the Devipatnam forest area along the Andhra-Odisha border when elite anti-Maoist force Greyhounds spotted the insurgents during a combing operation and urged them to surrender. When the Maoists opened fire, security personnel responded and fatally shot the three leaders. The encounter occurred near Kondamodalu, between Rampachodavaram and Maredumilli mandals.
The deceased Maoists have been identified as Gajarla Ravi alias Uday, the secretary of the Andhra Odisha Border (AOB) Special Zone Committee and a member of the CPI(Maoist) Central Committee; Aruna, a Special Zone Committee member; and ACM Anju, also a committee member.
The security forces recovered three AK-47 rifles from the scene.
Aruna was the wife of Ramachandra Reddy, alias Chalapathi, a Central Committee member who was killed along with 13 others in Chhattisgarh earlier this year. She was involved in the killing of Araku MLA Kidari Sarveswara Rao and ex-MLA Siveri Soma—a double murder of TDP leaders in 2018 in Visakhapatnam district. Aruna, a native of Pendurthi mandal in Visakhapatnam, had a bounty of Rs 25 lakh on her head. Similarly, Uday also carried a reward of Rs 25 lakh.
The bodies of the slain Maoists have been shifted to the Rampachodavaram Area Hospital, where senior police officials also visited the site.
This operation marks a significant setback for the Maoists in the AOB region, which they considered a crucial corridor connecting the Dandakaranya forests of Chhattisgarh to Jharkhand. The recent success comes shortly after multiple Maoist deaths in Chhattisgarh under “Operation Kagar,” underscores the intensified security efforts against the insurgent network.