Key Maoist leader Anant, 10 others surrender in Maharashtra’s Gondia

Key Maoist leader Vikas Nagpure alias Navjyot alias Anant surrendered before the police in Maharashtra’s Gondia district on Friday along with 10 others.

Anant was the spokesperson of the Maharashtra-Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh special zonal committee of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist). Days earlier, he had issued a press release urging the chief ministers of the three states to halt anti-insurgency operations, and setting January 1, as the deadline by when the Maoists would surrender, The Indian Express reported.

Ankit Goyal, the deputy inspector general of police (Gadchiroli range), camp Nagpur, told the newspaper that multiple factors had led to Anant’s surrender.

“We tried to convince him, and the operations were also going on, and probably he felt that this was the right time to surrender,” Goyal said.

Anant was among the key Maoist leaders in the Maharashtra-Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh zone, with only one Central Committee member – Ramdher – above him in the CPI (Maoist) hierarchy, the official said, according to The Indian Express.

“Ramdher’s group is still there in the northern part of the region, but we are sure that he will surrender soon,” Goyal further said.

The others who surrendered on Friday were divisional committee commander Nagasu Golu Wadde, Rano Poreti, Santu Poreti, Sangeeta Pandhare, Pratap Bantula, Anuja Kara, Puja Mudiyam, Dinesh Sotti, Sheela Madavi and Arjun Dodi, the Hindustan Times reported.

Gondia Superintendent of Police Gorakh Suresh Bhamare told the newspaper that the surrendered Maoists carried a collective reward of Rs 89 lakh.

The Union government has repeatedly vowed to end Maoism by March 31, 2026.

Since January, 114 Maoists have surrendered before the Maharashtra Police, the Hindustan Times reported. On October 15, 61 Maoists, including CPI (Maoist) politburo member Mallujola Venugopal alias Bhupathi, had surrendered in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli in the presence of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

In neighbouring Chhattisgarh, about 2,400 Maoists have surrendered in recent times, while 1,792 have been arrested and 485 killed by security forces, the Hindustan Times reported.

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.

Also read:

• Skill training for surrendered Maoists or forced detention by Chhattisgarh police?

• Rs 5 crore bounty: Are rewards making anti-Maoist operations more deadly?