The CPI (Maoist) Charla Local Guerrilla Squad (LGS), which is active in the Chennapuram forest stretch that straddles along the restive inter-State border with Chhattisgarh, has lost its commander Sodi Jogaiah, 25, in Wednesday’s alleged exchange of fire between the police and the Maoist rebels in Chennapuram forest area of Charla mandal.
The police on Thursday identified the bodies of the three Maoists, including two women cadres - those killed in the Chennapuram “exchange of fire” as Sodi Jogaiah of Kistarampadu, Madakam Malli, 22, Maoist dalam member, of Chennapuram, both from Charla mandal, and Madakam Mangi, 24, Charla LGS member, of a tribal hamlet in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh's Kukunoor mandal.
Jogaiah was wanted in connection with four murder cases, including the kidnap and murder of former MPTC member N Srinivasa Rao, owing allegiance to the ruling TRS, of Besta Kothuru village in July last year, police sources said.
Sodi Jogaiah, the Charla LGS commander of the outlawed outfit, was involved in as many as 26 cases of Maoist violence in Bhadrachalam Agency, said Superintendent of Police Sunil Dutt.
Jogaiah was the main accused in the murder of former MPTC member N Srinivasa Rao of Besta Kothur in 2019 and also wanted in connection with the murder of a villager in Peddamidisileru in 2017, a youth of Pusuguppa village and a farmer in Kurnapalli in Charla mandal in 2018, the SP said.
The bodies of the three Maoists were handed over to their relatives on Thursday afternoon after postmortem at the Government Area Hospital in Bhadrachalam, he said, adding that the police are trying to bring back their bodies and preserve them in freezers at the Government Area Hospital for re-postmortem as per the orders of the Telangana High Court.