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The killing of senior Maoist commander M Balkrishna in an encounter by security forces in Chhattisgarh’s Gariaband on Thursday has dealt a major blow to Left-wing extremism (LWE) in Odisha, said police officers, who described him as the one spearheading the movement in the state.
Balkrishna, also known as Manoj, Balana, and Bhaskar, was in charge of the Maoists’ Odisha State Committee and a member of the group’s Central Committee. Police said the 60-year-old was involved in almost all major Maoist-linked attacks in Odisha over the past 20 years.
A senior police officer said Balkrishna was involved in the February 2008 Nayagarh attack, in which Maoists killed 14 people, including 13 policemen, and looted the district armoury. They said he was also among the key strategists of the attack on Greyhound commandos in the Balimela reservoir in Odisha’s Malkangiri district in July 2008, which left 37 commandos dead.
In April 2009, when the Maoists targeted a well-guarded armoury and a bauxite mine of the central PSU, Nalco, in Koraput district, Balkrishna was part of the team that carried out the attack, officers said. As many as 11 CISF jawans and four Maoists were killed in the gunfight.
From Telangana to Odisha’s most wanted
From Warangal district in what is now Telangana, Balkrishna formally joined the Maoist movement in 1983, police said. As per police records, he was born in October 1965 and studied till the intermediate level at a college in Hyderabad. He spoke Telugu, Hindi and Gondi. He was married and his family is settled in Hyderabad, sources said.
Though Balkrishna was arrested several times, he was released in exchange for the release of an abducted TDP legislator, Venkateswara Rao, in January 1990, sources said.
At the top of the Odisha Police’s most-wanted list, Balkrishna carried a cash award of Rs 25 lakh on his head in Odisha and Rs 1 crore in Chhattisgarh. According to sources, he had previously managed to escape several gunfights with security forces.
“As all Maoist activities in Odisha were carried out under his supervision, his encounter killing will definitely weaken LWE activities in our state,” Sanjeeb Panda, Additional Director General (ADG) of anti-Naxal operations, told The Indian Express.
Police sources said that under Balkrishna’s planning and strategy, the cadres of the Kandhamal-Kalahandi-Boudh-Nayagarh (KKBN) division of the Maoists were using the Gariaband-Nuapada (Gariaband is in Chhattisgarh and Nuapada is in Odisha) forests to enter Kalahandi and then move towards Boudh and Kandhamal forests. It was also the route for the KKBN division cadres to maintain their supply chain, which will now be disrupted, police said.
While LWE activities have been restricted to a few pockets (the Kandhamal-Boudh-Kalahandi-Nuapada axis) in Odisha and incidents of violence have been minimised, the influx of Maoists from Chhattisgarh into the state through the Gariaband-Nuapada forests had been a cause of concern for the Odisha Police.
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