Bijapur, June 8: A senior leader of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) was killed in an ongoing anti-insurgency operation in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district, officials said on Friday, marking the second high-profile Maoist casualty in the region in as many days.
The slain insurgent, identified as Mailarapu Adellu, alias Bhaskar, was a Special Zonal Committee (SZC) Member of the CPI (Maoist)’s Telangana State Committee and carried a combined bounty of ₹45 lakh — ₹25 lakh in Chhattisgarh and ₹20 lakh in Telangana.
The encounter occurred in the Indravati National Park, part of the conflict-prone Bastar region, during a coordinated operation by personnel from the Special Task Force (STF), District Reserve Guard (DRG), and the CRPF’s elite CoBRA unit. According to security officials, Bhaskar was the secretary of the Mancherial-Komarambheem division of the Maoist outfit.
“We recovered the body of a Maoist along with an AK-47 rifle, explosives, and other weapons. He has been identified as Bhaskar, a senior cadre and top leader from Telangana,” Inspector General of Police (Bastar Range) Sundarraj P told reporters. This is the third major encounter in Indravati National Park this year, raising the total number of Maoists killed there to 45.
Bhaskar’s killing follows the death of Central Committee Member Thentu Laxmi Narasimha Chalam, also known as Sudhakar, who was gunned down on Thursday in the same operation. Authorities said Maoists retaliated hours later by torching a transport vehicle in the region.
The latest operation comes just two weeks after the killing of CPI (Maoist) General Secretary Nambala Keshava Rao, alias Basava Raju, in the Abujhmad forest in neighboring Narayanpur district, along with 27 other Maoists.
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai praised the efforts of security forces. “Operations are being carried out continuously, and we are achieving significant success. We salute the bravery of our jawans,” he said.
So far this year, 202 Maoists have been killed, with 185 of them in the Bastar region alone, which remains the epicentre of Left Wing Extremism. In the same period, 17 security personnel have lost their lives in Maoist attacks. India’s Home Ministry has set March 2026 as the deadline to eliminate Left Wing Extremism across the country.
