Basavaraju, backbone of Maoist movement, killed in Bastar Op: Amit Shah

RAipur: superior general secretarial assistant of CPI (Maoist ) Nambala Keshav Rao, assumed name Basavaraju, was killed in midweek’s coming upon in Abujhmad forest, police officers said.Basavaraju, police said, was among the 27 Maoists killed in a gun battle with security forces in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region on Wednesday.Union home minister Amit Shah said Basavaraju was the “backbone” of the Maoist movement,“A landmark achievement in the battle to eliminate Naxalism. Today, in an operation in Narayanpur, Chhattisgarh, our security forces have neutralized 27 dreaded Maoists, including Nambala Keshav Rao, alias Basavaraju, the general secretary of CPI-Maoist, topmost leader, and the backbone of the Naxal movement,” Shah wrote on X.“This is the first time in three decades of Bharat's battle against Naxalism that a general secretary-ranked leader has been neutralized by our forces. I applaud our brave security forces and agencies for this major breakthrough,” he wrote.Sharing details, he said that after completion of Operation Black Forest, 54 Naxalites have been arrested and 84 Naxalites have surrendered in Chhattisgarh, Telangana, and Maharashtra.“The Modi government is resolved to eliminate Naxalism before the 31st of March 2026,” Shah said. “The operation has been going on for the last 72 hours. More than 26 Maoists were killed in the encounter on Wednesday,” state home minister Vijay Sharma saidBasavaraju,71, was appointed the new general secretary of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) in 2018A veteran of the Maoist movement since the 1970s, Basavaraju is among the most elusive Maoist leaders in the country and has a reward of ₹1.5 crore on his head.A native of Jiyannapeta village in the Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh, Basavaraju is a BTech graduate from the Regional Engineering College in Warangal. Over the years, he has used multiple aliases, including Ganganna, Prakash, Krishna, Vijay, Darapu Narasimha Reddy, and Narasimha.Law enforcement agencies do not have his recent photograph and investigations have revealed that he owns no property in his hometown, which he left in the late 1970s. His primary areas of operation are reported to be Chhattisgarh, Telangana, and parts of Maharashtra.He played a crucial role in the formation of the Communist Party of India Marxist-Leninist People’s War (CPIMLPW) in Andhra Pradesh in 1980.In 1987, Basavaraju, along with other senior Maoist leaders such as Ganapathy and the late Kishanji, is believed to have received training in ambush tactics and explosives from former Tamil rebels in the forests of Abujhmad , Bastar.His rise within the party ranks continued in 1992, when he was elected to the central committee of CPIMLPW. Later, with the 2004 merger of CPIMLPW and the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI) to form CPI (Maoist), Basavaraju was appointed secretary of the Central Military Commission.According to sources, Basavaraju was camping in Abujhmaad for at least eight years.