81 Naxals killed in 6 weeks: Is India about to vanquish red terror?

Jayanta Kalita
TIMESOFINDIA.COMUpdated: Feb 16, 2025, 00:35 IST IST

Two Maoist strongholds – Abujmarh and Indravati National Park, both in Chhattisgarh – have been breached, and panicked cadres are desperate to enter Maharashtra to escape advancing security forces

Once a Maoist hotbed, Chhattisgarh is transitioning from “gun-tantra” (rule of the gun) to “gantantra” (democracy), chief minister Vishnu Deo Sai declared following the killing of 31 communist guerrillas in the state’s Bastar region on February 9.
What he said holds true not just for Chhattisgarh but also for vast swathes of what used to be called “liberated zones” in adjoining Maharashtra, as hundreds of Communist Party of India (Maoist) cadres and top leaders have been killed and captured by security forces in the past year alone.

Why the new strategy is workingAccording to Niranjan Sahoo, Senior Fellow at the think tank, Observer Research Foundation, “The recent successes by security forces against Maoists in Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh clearly indicate the once dreaded insurgent organisation is in the last leg of its nearly six decades of existence”. In recent years, the spread and lethality of Maoist violence was restricted to southern Chhattisgarh and a few tri-junction districts bordering Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Odisha, he says. “Even that seems to be slipping out of their hands now. Several big encounters last year and early this year testify that forces have gained irreversible advantage over the rebel organisation. The only visible site of resistance remains at Abujmarh, which might eventually fall in a few years.\"The success of many recent operations, Sahoo says, can be attributed to “excellent security and intelligence cooperation among the Centre and affected states, creation of robust road network to ensure quick deployment of forces and logistics, delivery of basic services to tribals apart from the modernization of police forces and opening of security camps at critical points.”Here’s how security forces are recapturing areas, once known as Maoist strongholds. Abujmarh – a big breakthrough“Abujmarh is no longer an impregnable red citadel. The liberated zones have been smashed, commandos are conquering every inch of Dandakaranya jungles. Maoist cadre base has been practically wiped out,” says Giridhar, a former commander of People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA), the armed wing of the CPI (Maoist). Giridhar, who had led seven ‘dalams’ or Maoist armed squads in Gadchiroli for 28 years, saw the movement decline first-hand. “There was a spark, a vision, and an ideology. But in today's world, change can only be ushered through democracy. Why should one tribal kill another – one in uniform, the other a Naxal? Meaningless killings find no place in history,” says the former guerrilla combat strategist who surrendered in June last year. Now he resides in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli with his wife Sangita, under police protection.Once a key architect of Maoist expansion, Giridhar had masterminded the 2009 ambush that killed Rajnandgaon superintendent of police Vinod Choubey. With 185 cases against him, he was instrumental in recruiting villagers into the guerrilla force, even as younger generations drifted toward urban aspirations.“Our cadre base was fast depleting. Police seemed friendlier with their civic actions, freebies, jobs, and promise of a better life. With education and the lure of urban dazzle, nobody wanted to join us. The youth did not want to die with a police bullet in their head,\" he says.Giridhar's surrender turned the wheels of Maharashtra's anti-Maoist operations, leading to the elimination of senior members like Milind Teltumbde, Rupesh, and Bhaskar Hichami. His exit was followed by over 30 cadres returning to the mainstream.However, despite the government’s success in containing Naxalism, top leaders like Hidma, Bhupathi alias Sonu, and Prabhakar – the current Gadchiroli Maoist chief – continue to elude the security forces. “The ideology may again revive with one good leader rising up against displacement, exploitation, ostracism, and suppression. Don't take any situation for granted,” Giridhar cautions. medium nocaption118270961How the second ‘red fort’ is crumbling Indravati National Park in Bijapur under Bastar division of Chhattisgarh was a safe hideout for Maoists until February 9, when 31 guerrillas were shot in one of the bloodiest encounters with security forces to date. More than 650 security personnel had entered the jungles from different sides and encircled the Maoist hideouts, resulting in a fierce gunbattle that lasted for several hours.After the operation, a large cache of weapons, including AK-47s, self-loading rifles (SLRs), INSAS and .303 rifles, barrel grenade launchers (BGL) and explosives was recovered from the area, which is nearly 420km from the state capital, Raipur.People’s Liberation Guerilla Aarmy, which is tottering in its headquarters at Abujmarh, was compelled to concede a vital stretch of land in the sprawling park, which also houses a tiger sanctuary.Buoyed by a 2,000-sq km security vacuum in restricted areas of Indravati national park, Maoists had consolidated their hold in the forested region, which was used as a PLGA base and rehabilitation centre for decades. Maoists’ formations of three states – Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Telangana – used the sprawling forests as their second alternative to Abujmarh, and senior cadres, including members of the outfit’s central committee and politburo, were known to be holed up in the park.After Abujmarh, this ‘red citadel’, too, has fallen. Cadre-training infrastructure, gun-making factories, arsenal stock and other wings, including medical, technical, propaganda and press, are now in a shambles.Following the February 9 gunfight, Maharashtra has stepped up drone surveillance along its borders, adjacent to the national park. Gadchiroli police have put up three border posts, Damrancha, Dechlipetha and Manne Rajaram, on high alert to ensure Maoist guerrillas don’t sneak into Maharashtra to escape advancing security forces from Chhattisgarh.After losing Abujmarh, Maoists depended on their hideouts in the Indravati park area. Sources say Gadchiroli-based formations, such as Aheri local organisational squad, would cross the Indravati river to enter the national park to dodge C-60 commandos (a special anti-Naxal unit of the Maharashtra police) during area domination drives and searches. 81 Naxals killed in just 6 weeksThe death of 31 Maoists on February 9 is the second-largest Maoist casualty count in a single security strike in four months in the Bastar region. On October 3 last year, 38 guerrillas were gunned down in Narayanpur’s Thulthuli. medium nocaption118280663Sundarraj P, the inspector general of police for the Bastar Range, emphasized that improved coordination among various anti-Maoist units has played a crucial role in driving the progress. “Like last year, we are continuing our inter-district and multi-force operations. All our operations were multi-force operations involving the special forces like DRG [District Reserve Guards], STF [Special Task Force], Bastar Fighters [a specialized police unit], CRPF [Central Reserve Police Force], BSF [Border Security Force], ITBP [Indo-Tibetan Border Police] and SSB [Sashastra Seema Bal]…” “The recent deployments were helpful in addressing the security vacuum and enhancing our operational reach in the erstwhile Maoist stronghold areas. But the difference maker has been our coordination, which has improved. We have learned a lot from our previous experiences,” he told The Indian Express. With inputs from Soumitra Bose and Rashmi Drolia","@type":"NewsArticle","mainEntityOfPage":"https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-plus/defence-security/81-naxals-killed-in-6-weeks-is-india-about-to-vanquish-red-terror/articleshow/118270827.cms","inLanguage":"en","headline":"81 Naxals killed in 6 weeks: Is India about to vanquish red terror?","keywords":"naxals killed,maoist killed,communist party of india,Central Reserve Police Force,BSF,abujmarh","url":"https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi-plus/defence-security/81-naxals-killed-in-6-weeks-is-india-about-to-vanquish-red-terror/articleshow/118270827.cms","datePublished":"2025-02-15T14:07:00+05:30","dateModified":"2025-02-16T00:35:00+05:30","description":"Defence & Security News: Two Maoist strongholds – Abujmarh and Indravati National Park, both in Chhattisgarh – have been breached, and panicked cadres are desperate to enter M","thumbnailUrl":"https://static.toiimg.com/thumb/msid-118271718,width-1280,height-720,imgsize-636722,resizemode-6,overlay-toi_sw,pt-32,y_pad-40/photo.jpg","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Jayanta Kalita","url":"https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toireporter/author-Jayanta-Kalita-479246147.cms"},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Times Of India","url":"https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.toiimg.com/photo/msid-92877370/92877370.jpg","width":600,"height":60}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.toiimg.com/thumb/resizemode-4,width-1280,height-720,msid-118271718/118271718.jpg","width":1280,"height":720},"isAccessibleForFree":false,"isPartOf":{"@type":["CreativeWork","Product"],"name":"Times of india","productID":"timesofindia.com:showcase"},"hasPart":{"@type":"WebPageElement","isAccessibleForFree":false,"cssSelector":".paywall"}}