Arrests, surrenders, encounters: Red Citadel under siege, is the endgame in sight for Maoists?

Kiran is not the only one to have lost “faith” in the recent past. A string of reverses in the form of arrests, surrenders and encounters has left the Maoist party and the movement — which former prime minister Manmohan Singh called the “single biggest internal security challenge” — at what is, arguably, its weakest point yet as the State makes inroads into hitherto Naxal citadels, from Abujhmad to Gadchiroli.

Five months ago, on September 20, 2024, Union Home Minister Amit Shah put an end date to a conflict that has confounded multiple governments at the Centre and states. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided that Naxal violence and ideology will be wiped out from the country. March 31, 2026, is fixed as the last date for Naxalism in this country. I assure you that we will wipe out Naxalism before that,” he said.

Shah reiterated that after the most recent setback for the Maoists — on February 9, 31 Maoists were killed in an encounter at Indravati National Park in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district. Two security personnel were also killed in the gunfight. So far this year, 81 Maoists have been killed in Chhattisgarh.

Iron-fist, a shrinking Red space

According to data from the Union Home Ministry, there have been 24,237 “incidents” and 8,694 “deaths” in the nearly two decades between 2004 and June 2023. Over 2,000 of these deaths are of security forces. Over the last decade, apart from cadres, the Maoist party has lost some of its biggest leaders in counter-insurgency operations in states.

On January 21 this year, Pratap Reddy Ramachandra Reddy alias Chalapathi, 62, who had a bounty of Rs 1 crore on his head, was gunned down by personnel of the Gariaband district police in Chhattisgarh, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA), and Odisha’s Special Operation Group (SOG). In November 2021, Milind Teltumbde, a central committee member of the CPI (Maoist), was killed in an encounter in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district.

In October 2016, four central committee members — Daya alias Garla Ravi, Ganesh, Mallesh and Chalapathi alias Appa Rao — were killed in an encounter in Odisha. Earlier, in 2010, the Andhra Pradesh police killed Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad, a politburo member, and in 2011, Mallojula Koteswara Rao alias Kishanji, a politburo member, was killed.

As against this, the number of Maoists arrested during the last 25 years is estimated to be 16,733, with the majority of these arrests made between 2015 and 2025. In 2024, 475 Maoists surrendered across the country. The number of surrenders in the last decade — from 2015 to 2025 — is estimated to be 10,884. This is double the number of surrenders in the previous decade — 4,380.

Karnataka recently declared that its “last Naxal”, Tombattu Lakshmi, had surrendered and, according to intelligence officials, the state is now “Maoist free”.

Telangana intelligence officials said that in 2024, “there was zero recruitment” to the banned outfit from the state. The leadership of the Maoist party too has been shrinking. While in 2004 there were 16 politburo members, now there are only four — Namballa Keshava Rao alias Basavraju, Mupalla Laxman Rao alias Ganapathy, Mallajulla Venugopal Rao alias Sonu, and Misir Besra, Telangana intelligence officials said. The central committee has 19 members.

It was under the Vajpayee-led NDA government that a coordination committee headed by the Union Home Secretary was set up to draw up an effective strategy to tackle the Maoist violence.

Later, under the UPA government, a comprehensive plan was drawn up by the Union Home Ministry under P Chidambaram, which involved a massive infusion of Central Armed Police Forces in Maoist districts of various states and allocation of funds for training and modernising of state police.

A plan under the ‘clear, hold and develop’ policy was drawn up. As part of the policy, forces would enter Maoist bastions, engage them in gunfights, build camps to hold the area and eventually get the state administration to build roads, schools and hospitals. It’s the same policy that the Modi government has continued after coming to power in 2014, only with greater vigour.

During its tenure, the Modi government has assisted states in building 544 fortified police stations in LWE (Left Wing Extremism) areas, up from 66 built during the UPA’s term. The road network in these LWE areas went up from 2,900 km between 2004 and 2014 to 14,400 km in the decade after. The present government has also set up 6,000 mobile towers in LWE areas.

Since 2019, the government has also established 280 new security camps in Maoist areas and 15 new Joint Task Forces, and deployed six CRPF battalions to assist the police in various states. According to the Union Home Ministry, only 38 districts in nine states are affected by LWE violence. Shah recently said Maoist insurgency is now confined to “just four districts of Chhattisgarh”.

Yet, if there have been successes in the fight against Maoists, it’s largely due to the concerted efforts of state governments and the local police. States such as Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and West Bengal have completely eliminated Maoists from their regions, while Odisha, Maharashtra and Bihar have restricted their activity to small pockets.

These states have achieved this through a multi-pronged approach, which involved strengthening and training of state police forces, raising crack commando units to fight Naxals, rolling out robust surrender and rehabilitation policies and taking governance and development to the remote tribal areas.

Last year, in Chhattisgarh, the current theatre of anti-Maoist operations, 219 Maoists were killed in encounters, making it the year with the highest Maoist casualties since the formation of the state.

The strategy here has been one of aggression with security forces setting up forward base camps — run mostly by the CRPF or state police — deep inside the forests of Chhattisgarh. These camps act as launchpads for action in the event of an operation, besides helping the forces in area domination and to gain ground.

The idea, senior officials earlier told The Indian Express, was to “box the Maoists in a grid of camps, making their movement difficult”. The camps, however, have been met with resistance from tribals in Narayanpur, Bijapur, Kanker and elsewhere in Bastar.

According to state government data, in the six years between 2019 and 2024, 100 police camps have come up in Bastar region. Chhattisgarh’s former Additional Director General of Police (Naxal Operations) R K Vij recently told The Indian Express, “Forward camps are filling up the security vacuum in places like Abujhmad and south Bastar, which were considered to be safe havens for Maoists. These camps are not only restricting the movement of Maoists, but are also helping forces conduct major operations.”

Sundarraj P, Inspector General of Police for Bastar Range, said that better coordination between different anti-Maoist forces had made a big difference. “We are looking to carry forward the prevailing synergy between the DRG, STF, Bastar Fighters, CoBRA, CRPF, BSF, ITBP, SSB, CAF and other security forces in the operational region. We have the best-ever coordination with troops of our bordering states,” he said.

While Chhattisgarh has largely relied on an iron-fist approach, what has worked in Telangana is “a humanitarian surrender policy”, an intelligence officer in the state said. Of the 475 Maoists who surrendered in 2024, 87 were from Telangana, according to the state intelligence department.

According to the ex-Maoists The Indian Express spoke to, the state offers land for cultivation, a place to stay and “and a decent amount of money for rehabilitation”. The bounty on their head is usually offered to the Maoist who surrenders, an intelligence officer said.

But there are tales of the Maoists hunting down those who surrender. “Yes, the party turns against those who turn informers and those who ‘harm’ the party,” Kiran, the former central committee member, says.

Subba Rao insists, “You can leave the party anytime you want. But there is a procedure for it.” The ‘procedure’, however, is not simple. “First, we need to inform the party that we want to leave. It is discussed and debated for three to four months. Then we are released,” says Ashok. The ‘release’ is not simple either. The person who hopes to surrender needs to establish contact with the state’s intelligence agencies, by which time one is already branded an informer. So, several Maoists prefer arrest over surrender. Some, they say, still prefer death to a surrender.

A Telangana intelligence officer said, “We have just one message to those who helm the party — surrender before people lose respect for you. Don’t lead a losing battle.”

According to former Maoists, the trick, however, is to educate people — those usually caught between the police and the rebels — about the redundancy of the party. “The best way to do this is to assert that democracy alone will prevail,” says Kiran, adding that the impression among people that the Maoist party is like any other political outfit needs to be dismantled. “The message that this is an armed outfit with a political aim should be communicated well.”

Intelligence outfits say state governments do their bit with outreach schemes. In Chhattisgarh, they say, there is an effort to educate people to “stop sheltering the insurgents”. In Telangana, efforts are on to keep the youth “who are vulnerable” away from Maoist literature. In Kerala, “sweeps have become common”.

It may not be over yet

Despite the aggressive approach and the government’s March 2026 deadline for a “wipeout” of Maoists, intelligence agencies admit that an endgame isn’t on the cards yet.

“They are not entering Telangana because our counter-ops are pushing them further into the jungles. We cannot let off steam because there is a chance of resurgence,” a top Telangana intelligence official told The Indian Express.

Officials in the state point out that of the 19 existing central committee members of the party, 12 are from the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. And that three of the four politburo members are Telugu-speaking.

A senior Home ministry official, however, said the fact that most of the top Maoist leaders are from united Andhra Pradesh points to the crisis in the movement. “It is a reflection of the paucity of fresh blood in the Maoist leadership that while Maoism stands almost wiped out from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, all the top leaders are from there. The only state where they have been effective this past decade is Chhattisgarh, but there is hardly anyone from the state in leadership roles,” the official said.

Intelligence officials and the former Maoists The Indian Express spoke to say there is still considerable sympathy for the movement and its cadres among the local population. “Even the crackdown on those known as ‘urban naxals’ has not wiped out this sympathy,” said an officer.

According to a Chhattisgarh police source, Bijapur still has thousands of militia cadre, making it the most Maoist-affected district among the seven such districts in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region. Those who are sceptical of the government’s deadline say Shah is not the only political leader to have predicted the end of the Maoists. In 2010, then Union home minister Chidambaram had said that he would eliminate Maoism in three years.

Kiran and the others who laid down their arms, too, caution against over-optimism. “It is true that the Maoist leadership is shrinking and aging. But we cannot outrightly say that they have lost traction or that they have lost their relevance,” he says, adding, “I left the party not because the ideology was dead but because I found that at the implementation level the party has failed.”

The three ex-Maoists say they have been able to live normal lives after leaving the banned outfit, running small businesses and managing agricultural fields. “There is no stigma whatsoever. People are welcoming to those who surrender,” Kiran says.

None of the three surrendered Maoists denounced the party completely. Sitting next to Kiran is an ex-district committee member who identified himself as Ashok, another alias, who joined the party as recently as 2008. “The party has a clear political aim and can still attract people,” he says with a smile.

“When upper-caste people attacked Dalits in my village, the party intervened and protected the Dalits. I decided to join the party that very month,” Ashok says, recalling a time when overground and underground leaders of the Maoist party used to roam free in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. He left the party because he did not want to follow its violent ways, he says.

A former state committee member of the party, who identified himself by his alias Subba Rao, says he surrendered because he was “disillusioned… But there are many others who are not”.

The three vouched for the egalitarian nature of the party, calling it its biggest strength. “There are women who join the party to counter patriarchy. There are Dalits who join to counter caste oppression…” says Ashok. When pointed out that some surrendered Maoists have criticised the party for being casteist and patriarchal, Ashok insists, “Lene ledu (not at all)”.

Will the party move towards laying down arms? “Only the leadership can say,” he says.

Explaining the Maoist party’s “pull”, an intelligence officer says, “As long as there are problems in the society, they (the Maoists) can pose as the solution to these problems. There is an ebb now (in the party’s operations), there could be a flow later. Anti-Naxal operations alone cannot wipe out the Maoists. There is enough evidence to suggest that both anti-ops and a good surrender-and-rehab policy is the key.”