A roundtable meeting organized by the Communist Party of India (CPI) has demanded an immediate halt to Operation Kagaar and urged the Union government to hold peace negotiations with the CPI (Maoist). The meeting also passed a resolution calling for the bodies of Maoist leader Namballa Kesava Rao and others killed to be handed over to their families.
The meeting was held on Sunday in protest against the “Central government’s repressive actions” under Operation Kagaar. The meeting also called for a judicial inquiry by a sitting Supreme Court judge into the Narayanpur massacre and the ongoing violence in the forests. The resolution expressed solidarity with the democratic movements opposing the corporate exploitation of forest lands rich in minerals and natural resources. It demanded constitutional protection of tribal rights and the removal of paramilitary and police camps from forest areas.
CPI leader Ramakrishna said the so-called Operation Kagaar is nothing but State repression and demanded that the Central government stop it. He reiterated that the recent encounter, which claimed 27 lives, including that of Namballa Kesava Rao, was not a real encounter but a cold-blooded government killing. He criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi for congratulating those responsible for the killings and condemned the delay in handing over of the bodies.
CPI (M) State leader V. Umamaheswara Rao alleged that Operation Kagaar is a conspiracy to hand over forest resources to corporate entities and it involves killing Maoists and tribals. He stressed that no political party would accept the violation of tribal rights and, despite ideological differences, united struggle is needed for civil rights. He accused Mr. Modi of halting Operation Sindoor on Trump’s orders.
Dalit Bahujan Front leader Korivi Vinay Kumar said the photos of the deceased clearly indicate this was a massacre, not an encounter, and called for resistance against these brutal actions.
Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah announced to the press on Wednesday (May 21) that CPI (Maoist) General Secretary Nambala Keshav Rao, alias Basavaraj, was among 27 Maoists killed by security personnel in a firefight in the Abujhmad area of Chhattisgarh state that day. One District Reserve Guard (DRG) team member was killed and several other security personnel sustained injuries in the encounter.
According to HAM Shah, the DRG, a specialized unit of the Chhattisgarh State Police, received intelligence inputs about a large number of Central Committee and Politburo members of the Maoist party, as well as senior Maad Division cadres and cadres of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), in Abujhmad area.
HAM Shah said that, following the inputs, teams from Narayanpur, Dantewada, Bijapur, and Kondagaon districts were dispatched to Abujhmad for the combing operation that went on for 72 hours inside the thick jungles of the region. During the combing operation a skirmish broke out between cadres of the Maoist party and the security forces.
HAM Shah concluded his remarks by declaring that following the encounter the bodies of 27 Maoists, including Nambala Keshav Rao, were recovered from the site of the gun battle, adding that the combing operation was ongoing.
Meanwhile, Rao’s family members at Jiyannapet were not sure whether his body would be brought to his native village.
Last month, the CPI (Maoist) said it was ready for dialogue if the government withdrew security forces and halted the ongoing offensive.
Early Life of Nambala Keshav Rao
Basavraj was born on July 10, 1955, in Jiyannapet in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh.
He was drawn towards the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology since his engineering days. He joined the CPI (ML) People’s War, led by Kondapalli Seetharamaiah, in 1980.
He was also an active member of the RSU.
His active participation with the Maoist movement started in Visakhapatnam. Basavaraj, along with Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad, who was killed in July 2010, established the Rythu Coolie Sangham. He had focused on the tribal areas of what is now ASR district.
From 1980 to 1987, he worked in various capacities in Visakhapatnam and East Godavari districts under the East Division.
After the expulsion of Kondapalli from the party, he was drafted into the Central Committee of the CPI (ML) PWG, which later became CPI (Maoist) with the merger of PWG and MCCI (Maoist Communist Centre of India), in 2004. He had played a key role in the merger and was the main strategist behind the idea of making the ‘Red Corridor’ and ‘Janatana Sarkar’ (People’s Government) in Chhattisgarh state.
In 2001, he became a member of the Politburo of the Maoist party and the chief of the party’s Central Military Commission (CMC).
In a press statement dated November 10, 2018, the CPI (Maoist) announced that Muppalla Lakshman Rao alias Ganapathy had “withdrawn from his responsibilities”, and the new general secretary of the party was Nambala Keshava Rao alias Basavaraj.
In another exchance an individual believed to be a Naxalite was killed in an exchange of fire with security personnel in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district, a police official announced to the press on Friday.
According to the police official, the firefight broke out on Thursday evening in a forest near Kistaram during an anti-Naxal operation carried out by a joint team of the District Reserve Guard (DRG), Special Task Force, and the CRPF’s elite CoBRA unit.
The police official claimed that authorities received intelligence inputs concerning the presence of a large number of Naxalites in the dense forests of Kistaram.
Acting upon this information, a joint task force comprising jawans of the District Reserve Guard, Special Task Force, and Commando Battalion for Resolute Action was deployed for an anti-Naxal combing operation. As the security personnel arrived at the site of the gun battle, a squad of Naxalites opened fire, prompting an immediate retaliation, the police official alleged.
In conclusion, the police official stated that this incident followed a separate encounter on Thursday along the Sukma-Bijapur inter-district border, where both a CoBRA commando and a Naxalite were said to have been killed.