The arrest of Vanthala Ramakrishna alias Ashok alias Prabhakar and the surrender of 60 Maoists including 33 party member and 27 key militia members at Paderu in Alluri Sitharamaraju (ASR) district on Tuesday have delivered a fatal blow to the Maoist movement in the Andhra-Odisha Border (AOB) region.
With no leadership, it is curtains for the movement here, claim the police.
The AOB region used to be a bastion of the banned CPI (Maoist) until the encounter in the Teegalametta forest of Koyyuru mandal in ASR district in June 2021. Since the incident in which six Maoists including top operatives such as Ashok alias Doctor and Ranadev were killed by the Greyhounds, the heft of the left-wing extremists has been on the wane.
The security forces stepped up the offensive which resulted in the surrender of a key tribal leader Chikkudu Chinna Rao alias Sudheer. Surrendering before then DGP D. Goutam Sawang, he exposed the rift between the tribal and non-tribal leadership in the region and this put the Maoists on the backfoot.
Unable to bear the heat, all key Maoist leaders such as Gajarla Ravi alias Uday, secretary of the Andhra Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee (AOBSZC), Aruna, Kakuri Pandana alias Jagan were said to have moved to safer havens in Chhattisgarh.
This left the operation of the AOBSZC in the hands of two tribal leaders— Kora Nageswara Rao alias Nagesh and Ashok alias Prabhakar.
Nageswara Rao was arrested in May this year, while Ashok was arrested on Tuesday. This leaves the AOB region without any leader, be it tribal or non-tribal. Now, the surrender of 60 Maoists have dealt a blow on the the movement in the AOB region.
More importantly, the Maoists and the militia members who surrendered on Tuesday are from the Korukonda-Pedabayalu region, a hotbed of Maoists activities.
“The situation is similar to that of Telangana,” said ASR district Superintendent of Police Satish Kumar.
The fall begins
The Maoist movement in Agency areas of the undivided Visakhapatnam district began in the mid 1980s. The movement was led by general secretary of the party Nambala Kesava Rao alias Basavraj and Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad, who was killed in an encounter in 2010. Then the banned outfit functioned under the banner of Kondapalli Seetharamiah’s People’s War Group (PWG).
With the merger of the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) People's War (People's War Group) and the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI), forming the present the CPI (Maoist), the movement grew exponentially not in the AOB region, but also in 12 States from Kerala to Uttar Pradesh. The Maoists termed it as the ‘Red Corridor’ and some parts, especially those in Chhattisgarh, were called ‘Liberated Zones’.
After 2012, things started to change. The major blow to the Maoists in the AOB region came as the Ramaguda encounter in October 2016, in which 30 Maoists were killed, literally wiping out the entire MKVB (Malkangiri Koraput Visakhapatnam Border) Division. This brought into force the AOBSZC under Uday, but they could never gain the foothold, as the security forces led by the Greyhounds, the CRPF on the Andhra side and the SOG (Special Operation Group), the BSF and the DVF (District Voluntary Force) in the Odisha side, making deep inroads into the Maoist heartland.
In the last two years, the top leaders who surrendered include Boda Anjaiah alias Naveen, Gemmala Kamesh alias Hari, Muttangar Jallandhar Reddy alias Krisha, Chikkudu Chinna Rao alias Sudheer and Mahendra alias Dubasi Shankar.
“With major surrenders, encounters and arrests, and the death of Akkiraju Haragopal alias Ramakrisha alias RK, who was considered to be among the main architects for controlling the movement in the AOB region, it can now be called curtains for the left- wing extremism in this region,” said a senior police officer engaged in anti-Maoist operations.
