Visakhapatnam : Madvi Hidma, a top Maoist commander who led 26 armed attacks against security forces and civilians, was gunned down in an encounter in Andhra Pradesh’s Alluri Sitarama Raju district on Tuesday. Hidma (43), who had a bounty of Rs 50 lakh, was involved in the 2010 Dantewada attack and the 2013 Jhiram Valley massacre, among major ambushes.
The encounter was launched after security personnel received intelligence inputs about the movement of Maoists near the Andhra Pradesh-Chhattisgarh-Odisha border. Born in Chhattisgah’s Sukma in 1981, Hidma was the head of PLGA Battalion No 1, the Maoists’ deadliest strike unit. He was the youngest member of the Central Committee of the CPI (Maoist). He was the only tribal from the Bastar region to join the committee.
Hidma was involved in major attacks, including the 2010 Dantewada attack in which 76 CRPF personnel were killed and the 2013 Jhiram Valley massacre in which 27 people, including top Congress leaders, were killed. The 43-year-old played a part in the 2021 Sukma-Bijapur encounter, in which 22 security personnel laid down their lives.
Home Minister Amit Shah congratulated the security forces involved in the operation for successfully neutralising Hidma. He had given the security personnel a deadline to kill Hidma by November 30, as part of an anti-Maoist operation. Tuesday morning’s anti-Maoist operation took place after a long period of limited Maoist activity in Andhra Pradesh. The state witnessed previous encounters in April and June. In the June 18 encounter, Gajarla Ravi, a Central Committee member on the National Investigation Agency’s most wanted list, and Aruna, the wife of senior Maoist leader Chalapati alias Appa Rao, were among the three Maoists killed.
With Union Home Minister Amit Shah vowing to end the insurgency by next March, security forces have been pursuing Maoists in Chhattisgarh, where they are currently hiding in a few pockets of Bastar and Dandakaranya. Much of the top leadership, including former general secretary Basvaraj, and Central Committee members Katta Ramachandra Reddy, Kadari Satyanarayana Reddy, Gajarla Ravi, Chalpathi, Sahdev Soren, Balkrishna, and Narasimha, have been killed this year.
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