Nambala Keshavrao alias Basavaraju, the country’s topmost Maoist leader who had an engineering degree and was once a national-level volleyball player, was among 27 insurgents gunned down on Wednesday morning during an intense encounter with security forces that stretched over 50 hours inside the Abhujmad forest in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur district.
One jawan from the District Reserve Guard (DRG), an anti-insurgency unit of the state police, was also killed in the operation.
Basavaraju, 69, general secretary of the banned CPI (Maoist) who had a bounty of ₹2 crore on his head, was considered the most influential figure in the outfit and his death is being seen as a major blow to the Naxal movement in the region.
Union home minister Amit Shah said this was the first time in three decades that a Maoist leader of the rank of general secretary had been neutralised by the security forces and iterated his resolve to eliminate Naxalism before March 31, 2026.
Sources in the security establishment said nearly 3,000 additional security personnel deployed in the Maoist hotbeds of Chhattisgarh encircled the rebels inside the forest before stepping up the offensive against them.
“Basavaraju was wanted by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and police forces in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. He was the key strategist behind some of the deadliest Maoist attacks in India, including the 2010 Dantewada massacre in which 76 CRPF personnel were killed,” said a security official attached to the Union home ministry.
“Basavaraju was overseeing ambushes, tactical operations and long-term military strategies and also managed intelligence and logistics,” the official said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the latest anti-Maoist operation.
“Proud of our forces for this remarkable success. Our government is committed to eliminating the menace of Maoism and ensuring a life of peace and progress for our people,” Modi said in a post on X.
The latest operation was undertaken by DRG personnel from four districts — Narayanpur, Dantewada, Bijapur and Kondagaon — based on intelligence that a senior Maoist leader and some members of the rebel outfit were hiding in a specific area inside the Abhujmad forest.
“Security forces surrounded the Maoists. As they closed in, the Maoists opened fire, resulting in a fierce gunbattle for over 50 hours,” said a CRPF official.
The Abujhmad forest, spread over 3,900sqkm in south Chhattisgarh and part of the Bastar Lok Sabha constituency, was once considered an impregnable rebel fortress but the ongoing offensive inside it has resulted in the elimination of a large number of CPI (Maoist) members.
Security forces have been using drones for reconnaissance and taking real-time images of Maoist hotbeds inside the forest before undertaking offensives.
BTech Basavaraju
Born in July 1955 in a village in Andhra Pradesh’s Srikakulam district, Basavaraju belonged to an ordinary family. He had earned a BTech degree from the Regional Engineering College (now NIT) in Warangal and even represented Andhra Pradesh at the national level in volleyball.
During his college days, he got involved in Leftist politics. He was arrested in 1980 after a clash with Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad members. The same year, he formally joined the People’s War, marking the beginning of his 35-year journey in the Maoist movement.
He rose through the ranks, joining the CPI-ML (People’s War) central committee in 1992 and later becoming secretary of the Central Military Commission after the merger that formed the CPI (Maoist) in 2004.
In 2018, the CPI (Maoist) officially announced that Basavaraju had replaced long-time general secretary Mupalla Laxman Rao alias Ganapathy. While he had taken over leadership responsibilities earlier in 2017 due to Ganapathy’s declining health, the transition was kept under wraps until a public statement was issued in November 2018.
Basavaraju’s promotion marked the first leadership change in the outfit in 14 years. Ganapathy, the founding general secretary after the merger of the People’s War group and the Maoist Communist Centre, is believed to have fled to the Philippines.
Basavaraju was not only the party’s top leader but also a politburo member. He was also a part of the standing committee and the central committee and an editorial board member of the party’s publication, Awam-e-Jung.