The CPI (Maoist) party has alleged that its Central Committee member and Special Zonal Committee Secretary Comrade Madvi Hidma (alias Sahdev), was killed in a “staged” encounter by the Andhra Pradesh police. The outlawed group has alleged that the police threw the bodies in Andhra Pradesh’s Maredumilli forest along the Andhra-Odisha border to cover up the extrajudicial act. They have asked for an independent inquiry into the incident.
In a statement issued on November 20, the Maoist group said that Hidma and his partner Raje were detained by the Andhra Pradesh Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) police in Vijayawada on November 15 while they were seeking medical treatment.
“Due to the betrayal of a traitor within our ranks, the enemy forces located them while they were seeking medical treatment for health issues. Despite being unarmed and defenseless, they were captured alive and taken into custody,” they said.
Police officials claimed that Hidma and Raje were killed on November 18 during an exchange of fire which took place between 6.30 and 7 am in the Maredumilli forest.
According to the group, Hidma and Raje were subjected to “severe torture and intense pressure to force them to surrender publicly and betray the party and the revolution.”
They were killed in “cold blood” when they rejected these demands, the statement said.
“To cover up this heinous crime, the police transported their bodies to the forests of Maredumilli and fabricated a false story of an "encounter" during a combing operation. This is nothing but a blatant fake encounter—a custodial killing designed to terrorize our movement and boost the morale of the oppressive forces.”
Andhra Pradesh State Committee Secretary Shankar (alias Tech Shankar) and several other leaders were killed in the same manner, they said. “These acts are part of a broader pattern of extrajudicial killings aimed at crushing the people's resistance against corporate loot and state repression in the tribal regions,” they said.