Inside Story: How Senior Maoist Leader Basavaraju Was Killed in Abujmad Operation

Inside Story: Around 7 am on Wednesday, a CPI (Maoist) sentry met a DRG force jawan in the Abujmad thick forests going into an intense gun battle in the course of which the senior-most leader of CPI (Maoist), Nambala Keshav Rao or Basavaraju, got killed. The full details of the operation emerged days after a big victory for the security forces.

According to a Bastar senior officer, for over three months, the Narayanpur Police’s anti-Naxal wing was slowly stitching together a puzzle of senior Maoist leader hiding deep in the jungles of Abujhmad.

From 2003 to 2023, Abujhmad was considered a safe haven for senior Maoist leaders due to its extremely difficult terrain and dense forests.

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They started with tracing the surrendered Maoists, particularly those who had plied the dense interiors of Abujhmad and had slowly started surrendering from various districts.

“Each surrender brought a story, each story a thread. The police scanned every interrogation report, combing through details for clues that could reveal the patterns of senior Maoist leaders’ shelter and movements—especially those of Basavaraju, a top commander long protected by PLGA’s elusive Company No. 7,” said the officer.

The surrendered cadres of Company 7, who were trained to protect leaders like Basavaraju, were subjected to even more rigorous interrogation by the Narayanpur police.

Many tried to mislead the investigators-twisting facts, throwing decoys, and setting up false trails-but the anti-Naxal wing under SP Prabhat Kumar cast a wide net. They launched operations on each tip-off, refusing to back down or abandon a lead, faint as it might have been.

“Operation after operation slowly began to squeeze the space in which the Maoists could operate. The vast, unchallenged forest terrain of Abujhmad began to shrink,” the officer added.

On Monday, following fresh local input-unrelated to the broader surveillance plan-the DRG mobilised on the borders of Bijapur, Dantewada and Narayanpur district, engaging in fire fights with Maoists four times.

A torrid search operation continued without success on Tuesday.

On Tuesday evening, four chosen teams of District Reserve Guard camped under the dense jungle in eerie silence.

“What we didn’t know was that barely a kilometer to the north, Basavaraju himself had also taken shelter for the night, surrounded by 25 armed cadres and another senior Maoist leader,” said a senior officer who was leading the DRG team.

Both groups-hunters and hunted-unaware of each other's presence, settled in for the night.

At 7 in the morning, while a Maoist sentry was patrolling approximately the Mannan-Rampur area, it stumbled on a DRG jawan leading a search.

In the sudden clash, the sentry stabbed the jawan with a kind of knife in front of the gun-rifle. The jawan resisted fiercely, and in the scuffle, a shot was fired.

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Security forces stormed into the place while the Maoists fled for cover.

“The Maoists first ran south and saw one of the four teams. Reversing course, they fled north—only to run into the Eagle team. From a small plateau, the Maoists quickly regrouped and formed a defensive circle around a man the DRG immediately suspected was of high value,” said the officer who was present during the action.

Standing on the higher grounds, the Maoists started raining bullets on the DRG teams, who, however, were undeterred and climbed up the rocky rise amid the gunfire.

The exchange of bullets went on for some 30 minutes. Security forces fired around 300 rounds.

“As soon as the old man guarded by the jawan was gunned down, the Maoists raised slogans –Laal Salam, PLGA zindabad and then started running in different directions to escape. But we surrounded them and all were gunned down,” said the officer.

The smoke started clearing, and the search began when a former Maoist-turned-DRG jawan, who had once served in the Company No. 7 and surrendered in 2022, moved forward.

Immediately after the fallen were identified, Basavaraju was identified as well.

“It was a culmination of months of planning, interrogation, and relentless pursuit that had finally borne fruit. No one ever thought that Basavraju , the senior most Maoists will be gunned down like this,” said the officer.

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