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Madvi Hidma may have been one of India’s most wanted insurgents in the eyes of the state, but in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar, Adivasi activists say the death of the CPI (Maoist)’s top commander marks the silencing of a leader they believe embodied their resistance. As the BJP-led Union government pushes its anti-Maoist campaign under Operation Kagar, these activists argue that Hidma will be remembered not as a fugitive, but as a voice they saw as challenging state excesses.
On Tuesday, November 18, Hidma, his wife Raje, and four others were killed in what police describe as an “encounter” in Andhra Pradesh's Alluri Sitharamaraju district, on the Andhra-Odisha border. Addressing the media later in the day, Andhra Pradesh’s Additional Director General (Intelligence) Mahesh Chandra Laddha said the exchange of fire took place between 6.30 and 7 am in the Maredumilli forest.
Calling him “one of the most wanted and dreaded Maoists,” ADG Mahesh Chandra said Hidma had been the focus of a longstanding security operation. As chief of the CPI (Maoist)’s People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PGLA) battalion, Hidma led one of the insurgency’s most lethal units and was accused in several high-casualty attacks.