Two major operations resulting in ‘neutralisation’ of 18 Left Wing Extremists and ‘surrender’ of a top Maoist leader in the past three months in Telangana has once again confirmed the State’s upper hand in its strategic battle with them.
The first of these two ‘exchanges of fire’ was reported on December 14, 2017. Eight naxalites of Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) Chandra Pulla Reddy Bata were killed in Bhadradri Kothagudem district, close to Chhattisgarh State. Within days of this ‘encounter’, a member of the CPI (Maoist) Central Committee — highest body governing party’s policies — Jinugu Narsimha Reddy alias Jammpanna along with his wife Hinje Anitha surrendered before the police.
In fact, police officers associated with the anti-LWE work say privately that Jampanna’s surrender and the December 14 encounter were near simultaneous. CPI (Maoist), describing Jampanna as renegade, said he was already suspended from the party. For the Telangana police, Jampanna was a big catch and boosted their morale further because he would be apparently an ‘invaluable informer’ for their future operations against the LWE. A couple of months after Jampanna’s surrender, the combined police parties of Telangana and Chhattisgarh stumbled upon a company of nearly 70 Maoists on the bordering areas of the two States on March 2.
Ten Maoists and a commando of Grehyounds (Telangana’s elite anti-LWE force) were killed in the exchange of fire that followed. From 2005, the LWE movement was on the wane in Telangana region of erstwhile undivided Andhra Pradesh State. Many even raised apprehensions that Maoists would regain foothold in Telangana when the Centre declared creation of separate Telangana State in 2014.
On the contrary, the State continued to win in the tactical and strategic fight against the LWE. In fact, there is no trace of Maoists or any other naxalite group in southern Telangana comprising undivided districts of Mahabubnagar, Ranga Reddy and Nalgonda.
The State capital of Hyderabad was out of bounds for naxalites for long. “Their presence is only in undivided districts of Khammam, Warangal, Karimnagar and Adilabad along the border of Chhattisgarh. That too, only occasional attempts to enter Telangana and retreat into Chhattisgarh (where they are running parallel government in some areas) due to our continuous combing operations,” said the Intelligence officer.
When the LWE movement was at its zenith in Telangana, interior villages were the strongholds of naxalites. They had informers in every nook and corner. Employing different tactics and taking advantage of dwindling public support to naxalites, police unofficially ‘posted’ their informers in disguise at every possible place. When an attempt is made to lure a youngster into Maoists’ fold in a remote part of the State, the police bosses in Hyderabad get a hint within days. With Greyhounds — billed as one of the best commando forces in south-east Asian countries — at their disposal, Telangana police are scoring over LWE militants often.
Though they suffered setback by losing a commando recently, they were emerging victorious with clock-work precision operations most of the time.
