Senior Maoist leader with Rs 1 crore bounty surrenders in Telangana
text_fields
Hyderabad: A senior leader of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), carrying a bounty of Rs 1 crore, surrendered before Telangana police on Friday, September 12.
According to reports, Pothula Kalpana alias Sujathakka, widow of slain Maoist leader Kishenji who was killed in November 2011, is among the most wanted Maoist leaders in the country. She has been heading the Chhattisgarh South Sub Zonal Bureau and faces 106 cases.
Kalpana, who once contributed short stories to Telugu magazines under the pen name ‘Myna’, is also popularly known as Mynakka. Along with her, a few other Maoists also surrendered. A formal announcement is expected at a press conference on Saturday, September 13.
The surrender follows a trend in recent months, with several senior Maoist operatives giving themselves up, often due to health issues and sustained anti-naxal operations. In July, five Maoists had surrendered in Mulugu district.
The Maoist movement has suffered heavy losses in recent years. Top leader Nambala Keshava Rao alias Basavaraju was killed in an encounter on May 21, along with 27 others. Several senior leaders including Tentu Lakshmi Narasimha Chalam alias Sudhakar (65), Modem Balakrishna alias Balanna, Katakam Sudarshan, and Pratap Reddy Ramachandra Reddy alias Chalapathi (62) have also been eliminated.
Earlier, key leaders such as Mylarapu Adellu alias Bhaskar, and veteran cadres like Sushil Roy (78), a founding politburo member who died in 2014 at AIIMS Delhi, and B Narayan Sanyal alias Naveen Prasad alias Bijoy Da, the party’s second-in-command who passed away in 2017, marked a series of setbacks for the Maoist ranks.
According to Mulugu police, the spate of surrenders is also a result of the joint awareness program ‘Poru Kanna Ooru Minna – Mana Ooruki Tirigi Randi’, launched by the Mulugu District Police and CRPF to promote development and welfare among tribal communities.