Seven suspected members of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) were killed in a gunfight with security forces in Andhra Pradesh’s Alluri Sitarama Raju district on Wednesday, The Hindu reported.
This came a day after Madvi Hidma, one of the most wanted Maoist leaders, and five others were killed in the same district.
The police had said on Tuesday that some Maoists had fled the site of the earlier gunfight and that a search was underway to apprehend them.
Those killed on Wednesday were four men and three women, The Times of India reported.
Additional Director General of Police Mahesh Chandra Laddha told the newspaper that one of those killed was Metturi Joga Rao, also known as Tech Shankar, who was in charge of the Andhra-Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee.
The police said he was known for assembling improvised explosive devices and for developing several mines in the region.
The identities of the others are still being verified.
Laddha told The Hindu that Wednesday’s gunfight took place in the Maredumilli forests at around 7 am and was still underway.
Separately, the Andhra Pradesh Police arrested 50 other persons suspected to be Maoists who had travelled from Chhattisgarh and Telangana, Laddha told ANI.
He said that among those arrested were three state committee members, five divisional committee members and 17 area committee members.
“All are active members of the Maoist organisation,” the police officer was quoted as saying. “Their plan was to revive Maoism in the area. Based on accurate information, we acted and arrested them.”
The Union government has repeatedly vowed to end Maoism by March 31, 2026.
Last month, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs said that the number of districts across different states affected by “Left-wing extremism” has come down to 11 from 18 in March.
In 2025, the number of “most affected” districts has also come down from six to three, it added. These are Bijapur, Sukma and Narayanpur in Chhattisgarh.
On October 16, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai said that in the past 22 months, 477 suspected Maoists were killed, 2,110 had surrendered and 1,785 had been arrested in the state.
Malini Subramaniam has reported for Scroll that while many of those killed in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region in 2024 were declared by the police to be reward-carrying Maoists, several families dispute the claim. The families claim that the persons killed were civilians.
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