Maoist leader killed by his colleagues in Chhattisgarh’s Kanker

Raipur, Sep 9 (PTI) A Maoist leader has been killed allegedly by his own colleagues in Kanker district of Chhattisgarh, a senior police official said on Monday in what appears to be a fallout of internal feud.

Citing intelligence inputs, Inspector General of Police (Bastar Range) Sundarraj P said the incident took place in Malampenta forest under Partapur police station limits of Kanker district, around 130km from state capital Raipur, on September 6.

Vijja Madkam, an area committee member of the Rajnandgaon-Kanker border division of Maoists and a resident of south Bastar, was brutally murdered by his colleagues on instructions of Maoist leader hailing from Telangana Vijay Reddy, who had accused him of betraying the outfit, he said.

Preliminary investigation suggests there is panic among top leadership of the outlawed CPI (Maoist) following the deaths of senior cadres belonging to Telangana, Odisha, Maharashtra and other regions in multiple encounters in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region this year, noted the IPS officer.

Suspecting their own cadres of being “covert operatives” (police informers), senior Maoist figures from other states have been targeting their local colleagues, thereby creating a situation of infighting within the banned organization, he informed.

It has been observed that top Maoists use local cadres as a human shield to escape during encounters with security forces. But in the recent gunfights in the region between Naxalites and security personnel, this strategy of top Maoists seems to have failed, Sundarraj said.

In the last eight months, 153 Naxalites, including top cadres like Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee (DKSZC) members Joganna and Rander, Central Reorganisation Committee (CRC) commander Sagar and divisional committee member Vinay have been killed in separate encounters with security personnel in the Bastar region which consists of seven districts, he said.

In the last few days, the DKSZC, the strongest formation of Maoists in the country, has suffered casualties in Chhattisgarh resulting in the banned outfit becoming directionless and leaderless. Maoists’ top leadership from other states has been collecting crores of rupees for the last 30 to 40 years through extortion and levies by using local cadres, said the police officer.

Now, Maoist figures from outside Chhattisgarh have been getting exposed in front of local cadres due to which a situation of rebellion is prevailing in the outfit, Sundarraj maintained.