Andhra Greyhounds kill Maoist central committee member Gajarla Ravi, 5th top leader killed this yr
Belonging to the Karimnagar district of Telangana, Uday was deemed the seniormost Maoist leader in the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha border areas. He was also accused of hatching an assassination plot against Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu in 2003.
Along with Uday, the Greyhounds also killed Raavi Venkata Chaitanya alias Aruna, a senior Maoist leader in the Andhra-Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee (AOBSZC) and wife of slain CCM Chalapathi, who was killed at the start of the year in Gariaband.
New Delhi: In another setback to the organisational strength of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), the Andhra Pradesh Greyhounds Wednesday killed a central committee member (CCM), Gajarla Ravi alias Uday in an encounter in the state's Alluri Sitharama Raju district.
Sources in the Andhra Pradesh Police said that the exchange of fire erupted early morning Wednesday in the Devipatnam forest area under Maredumilli police circle of the Alluri Sitharama Raju, which borders Odisha's Malkangiri and Koraput districts.
Sources added that Uday had first fled the Andhra-Odisha border region for Dandakaranya in 2022, but left the area following intensified operations by security forces in the region. 'He had returned from Dandakaranya to the AOBSZC in November 2024 and got trapped in an exchange of fire here,' an official said.
Besides being a member of the Central Committee, the top decision-making body of the Maoists, Uday was also the secretary of the AOBSZC.
While Uday is the fifth such central committee member target for the security forces in the Left Wing Extremism-affected states of the country, this is the first major success for the Andhra Pradesh Greyhounds in anti-Naxal operations this year.
Weeks earlier in May, security forces had killed the general secretary of the Maoists, Nambala Keshava Rao alias Basavarju, in an encounter in Abujmarh forest.
With his death in the latest encounter, the top body of the CPI (Maoist) is left with only nine members—an all-time low for the banned outfit since its formation in September 2004, after a merger between CPIML People's War and the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI).
Earlier this month, the security forces killed CCM Sudhakar in an encounter around Indravati National Park area in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur.
Before these encounters in Chhattisgarh, the security forces in Jharkhand had killed another CMM, Prayag Manjhi, in an encounter in Bokaro.
Sources in the security establishment said that the latest encounter proves that the hold of Maoist outfits in different regions is weakening.
'Senior Maoist leaders are getting killed in Dandakaranya area, which used to be their stronghold, and the killing of Uday, who was a formidable face in the Andhra Odisha border region, weakened their organisation beyond repair,' an official in the security establishment told ThePrint.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
Also read: Gallantry award-winning Additional SP rank officer killed in IED blast triggered by Maoists in Bastar
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