Top Naxalite commander Madvi Hidma, who had masterminded several attacks over the last two decades, was killed in an encounter in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh on Tuesday. Chhattisgarh Police described the breakthrough as the "last nail in the coffin" of the insurgency.
Security forces gunned down Hidma, his wife Raje, and four other Naxalites in the Maredumilli forest in the Alluri Sitaramaraju district of the neighbouring state this morning, a senior police officer in Bastar confirmed. Hidma's elimination is being hailed as the "last nail in the coffin" of the severely-weakened insurgency in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh.
"We have received information that Maoist leader Hidma is among the cadres killed on the Andhra Pradesh-Chhattisgarh border. It is a very important development," Chhattisgarh Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sharma told reporters in Raipur.
A native of Puvarti village in Sukma district, Hidma's age and appearance remained mysterious until his photograph surfaced earlier this year. For several years, he headed the Maoists' People's Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) Battalion No. 1, the outfit's strongest military formation in Dandakaranya, which spans parts of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana, and Maharashtra, apart from Bastar. He was elevated to the Maoists' Central Committee last year.
Hidma joined the banned organisation in the late 1990s as a ground-level organiser. He first came onto the radar of security agencies after the Tadmetla attack in 2010, which left 76 security personnel dead. He had assisted another top Maoist commander, Papa Rao, in executing that strike. Since then, his name surfaced repeatedly after every major ambush on security forces in Bastar.
Hidma was an expert in guerrilla warfare and was known to carry an AK-47 rifle, while members of his huge unit moved with sophisticated weapons. His four-layered security ring inside the forests reportedly made him untraceable for years.
Among the major attacks he was involved in was the 2013 Jhiram Valley attack in Darbha, Bastar, which effectively wiped out the senior Congress leadership in Chhattisgarh. He is also accused of the 2017 Burkapal ambush that resulted in the deaths of 24 CRPF personnel. His wife, Raje, was also active in the same battalion and allegedly involved in almost every major Maoist strike.
However, intensified anti-Naxal operations over the last two years damaged and weakened Hidma’s security cover, forcing him to flee deeper into the forests along the Chhattisgarh-Telangana and Chhattisgarh-Andhra Pradesh borders to seek shelter, officials said. "Hidma had acquired a heroic image among his cadres, and his elimination is a major step towards eliminating Maoism from the Bastar region," a Chhattisgarh Police officer stated.
With this encounter in Andhra Pradesh, nine Central Committee members of the Maoists have been eliminated by security forces across Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Andhra Pradesh this year.
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