A senior leader of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), who carried a reward of Rs 25 lakh, and six suspected Maoists were killed in a gunfight with security forces in the Abujmad region of Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli district, PTI quoted the police as saying on Friday.
A security officer was also killed and another injured during the anti-Maoist operation that had been going on in the area for three days, the news agency reported.
The Maoist leader was identified as Prabhakar alias Loketi Chandar Rao, who was in charge of the Maoists’ Gadchiroli divisional committee, the police was quoted as saying.
The Gadchiroli Police said that the operation was launched on Tuesday night following “credible intelligence” about the movement of a Maoist group in the region, PTI reported.
Fourteen units of the C-60 force, a special anti-Maoist unit of the district police, were deployed near Phodewada village along the Narayanpur–Gadchiroli district border, the news agency reported.
“An exchange of fire took place with Maoists for sometime during the day on Friday,” the news agency quoted the Gadchiroli Police as having said in a press note. “Their two camps were busted.”
Police said that C-60 officer Deepak Chinna Madavi (38), a resident of Mandra village in Aheri tehsil, was killed during the operation. He sustained a bullet injury during a gunfight on Thursday evening and was airlifted to a hospital in Bhamragad, where he later died.
Another officer, Joga Madavi, a resident of Kishtyapalli village, was injured in the gunfight on Thursday night. He was airlifted to Gadchiroli and is undergoing treatment. His condition is stable, PTI reported.
The development on Friday came days after the Union Ministry of Home Affairs on Tuesday said that the number of districts affected by “Left-wing extremism” has come down to eight from 11 in October.
The number of districts affected by such violence in 2018 was 126, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai told the Lok Sabha.
The Union government has vowed to end Maoism by March 31, 2026.
In the course of the Union government’s anti-Maoist offensive in 2025, key Maoist leaders like Ganesh Uike and Madvi Hidma have been killed, while others like Vikas Nagpure, alias Anant, and Mallojula Venugopal Rao, alias Bhupathi, have surrendered.
A report by Malini Subramaniam for Scroll on Hidma’s killing noted that in the Andhra Pradesh village closest to where he was killed, no one heard gunfire.
She had earlier reported 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.
Civil liberties groups and Opposition parties have also questioned some of these killings, alleging that they constitute “fake encounters”.
You’ve read Scroll.
Now help sustain it
Scroll is funded by readers, not corporate owners. If you believe our work matters, support our newsroom. Become a member today!
We’re not driven by clicks or corporate interests – just honest, independent reporting. Keep us going. Support Scroll today!