Three top leaders of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) were killed by the police in Andhra Pradesh’s Alluri Sitarama Raju district on Wednesday, June 18. The deceased Maoists were identified as Andhra Odisha Border (AOB) Special Zone Committee secretary Gajarla Ravi, also known as Uday, Special Zone Committee member Aruna, and Special Zone Committee ACM Anju. Ravi was also a member of the CPI(Maoist) Central Committee.
Personnel of the state anti-Maoist force Greyhounds killed the Maoists in the Devipatnam forest area on the Andhra-Odisha border.
The Greyhounds personnel, engaged in a combing operation in the forests, killed the three Maoists. The deaths occurred near Kondamodalu in the forests between Rampachodavaram and Maredumilli mandals.
The security forces said they recovered three AK-47 rifles from the scene.
Aruna was the wife of Ramachandra Reddy alias Chalapathi, a Central Committee member who was among 14 Maoists gunned down by security forces in January this year in Chhattisgarh near the border with Odisha.
Aruna was allegedly involved in the killing of Araku MLA Kidari Sarveswara Rao and former MLA Siveri Soma. Maoists had gunned down the two leaders of the TDP in 2018 in Visakhapatnam district. Aruna was a native of Karakavanipalem in Pendurthi mandal of Viskhatpatnam district.
Ravi, a Warangal native, was reportedly one of four Maoist party members among five brothers.
The bodies of the slain Maoists have been shifted to the Rampachodavaram Area Hospital.
The killing of three Maoist leaders is seen as a major blow to the banned outfit in the AOB region.
The AOB was seen by Maoists as a safe corridor between the Dandakaranya region in Chhattisgarh and the forests of Jharkhand.
The latest killings of the Maoists in AOB came close on the heels of the killings of several Maoists by the security forces in Chhattisgarh under Operation Kagar.