Top Maoist leader with Rs 1 cr bounty among 14 gunned down in encounter

Nikhil Rakhecha, Superintendent of Police, Gariaband, confirmed that he was among the dead.

The Gariaband district police, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA), and Odisha’s Special Operation Group (SOG) trained in anti-Naxal operations were part of the encounter. A CoBRA jawan suffered a minor injury.

The joint operation started after security forces received information about the movement of Maoists from the Sonabeda-Dharambandha Committee. The encounter began around 8 am Monday in the Udanti Sitanadi Tiger Reserve, around 60-70 km from the Gariaband headquarters and around 20 km from the Odisha border.

“The number of Maoist casualties may increase. Arms and ammunition have been seized in massive amounts,” the Chhattisgarh police said.

Sources in the CRPF said 11 teams, including its CoBRA unit, were part of the operation.

Shah said the latest operation was “another mighty blow to Naxalism”. “With our resolve for a Naxal-free India and the joint efforts of our security forces, Naxalism is breathing its last today,” he said.

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai said, “Under our double-engine government, our Chhattisgarh will definitely be free from Naxalism by March 2026.”

“The joint operations against Maoists will continue,” said a senior Odisha Police officer.

According to government data, 48 Maoists have been killed so far this year. In 2024, the number of Maoists killed was 290, and the year before that, it was 50. Security forces established 58 camps in Maoist-affected areas last year, and propose to establish 88 more this year.

The most high-profile casualty

Pratap Reddy Ramachandra Reddy alias Chalapati, who was killed in the encounter, hailed from Matempaipally village in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district. Security agencies in the state believe he was the mastermind of an attack on September 23, 2018, in Dumbriguda Mandal of Araku in which Kidari Sarveswara Rao, the TDP MLA from Araku Valley, and former TDP MLA Siveri Soma were shot dead. Chalapati’s wife Aruna allegedly led the group of Maoists who shot the two TDP leaders in a brazen attack that shook Andhra’s security forces.

As a teenager in the late 1970s, he was drawn to the ideology of the People’s War Group (PWG) of CPI (Marxist Leninist). In 1980, he dropped out of Intermediate and went to Srikakulam, where he joined the PWG.

A dossier prepared by the Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB), which gathered intelligence on Maoists, states that he worked in the Uddanam area of Srikakulam and was quickly elevated from party member to Divisional Committee Member (DCM). He went by various aliases, including Pratap, Ravi, and Jairam.

In December 2000, he was elevated as a special zonal committee member and inducted into the State Military Commission of Andhra Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee (AOB-SZC). Sources say he rose through the ranks because of his use of guerrilla warfare tactics and knowledge of military strategy.

The CPI (Maoist)’s Central Military Commission also leaned on him to plan high-profile assault operations and induct new recruits. Over three decades, he is alleged to have planned and led attacks in the border areas of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Chattisgarh.

In May 2016, after spending decades underground, the Andhra Pradesh police got their first lead on how Chalapathi looks when they found a selfie of him with his wife on a laptop belonging to a Maoist leader who was shot dead in an encounter in Visakhapatnam.

In fact, their romance had got him into trouble within the Maoist ranks. In 2010, he was suspended for a year for having a relationship with Aruna alias Chaitanya Venkat Ravi, a deputy commander in AOB-SZC. He eventually married her.

In 2012, he was demoted because a technical mistake he made led to the death of a cadre.

He was currently Secretary for the Odisha State Committee. Sources said he was suffering from chronic knee pain and obesity and had sought treatment secretly at various places on the Andhra-Odisha border.