Top leader of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) Sudhakar alias Kiran has reportedly surrendered to the police.
He, along with his wife Madhavi alias Neelima, is being questioned at an undisclosed location, top Telangana police officials unwilling to be named confirmed. The arrest of Sudhakar, whose arrest is perceived as a big blow to the Maoist movement in Jharkhand, where he had been operating for the past several years, may be formally announced in a couple of days in Hyderabad.
Carrying a reward of over ₹25 lakh on his head, Sudhakar is a CPI(Maoist) Central Committee member. He played crucial role in Eastern Regional Board of the party and was instrumental in creation of the Bihar Jharkhand Special Area Committee.
Hailing from Sarangpur of Nirmal district (erstwhile Adilabad district), he had initially worked with People’s War Group (PWG) of naxalites in Adilabad. He quickly rose to the position of PWG’s Adilabad District Committee Secretary.
Later, he got elevated in the party and eventually became one of the key persons in taking forward the CPI(Maoist) in other parts of the country, especially Jharkhand. Sudhakar is known for his strong military tactics. “Even Maoist leaders like Takkalapally Vasudeva Rao alias Ashanna who were behind Maoists’ sensational attacks, including the one at Alipiri on AP CM Chandrababu Naidu, were said to have learnt the tactics and strategy from him,” said a police official.
He was wanted in several cases by the police of different States, along with the National Investigation Agency, in different left wing extremism-related violence cases. Telangana intelligence officials stepped up their hunt for him after a CPI(Maoist) Central Committee member Jinugu Narsimha Reddy alias Jampanna and his wife H. Anitha surrendered to the police in December, 2017.
Sudhakar is in his late 50s. His original name is said to be Oggu Sathwaji. Intelligence officials say he used to carry an AK 47. In September, 2017, the Ranchi police of Jharkhand had arrested Sudhakar’s brother Narayan and the latter’s aide Satyanarayana Reddy.
An amount of ₹25 lakh and gold biscuits worth ₹12 lakh were seized from them. A special team of the Ranchi police came to Telangana then to ascertain if the money and property seized were actually related to Maoist funding.
