Top Maoist leader of Andhra Pradesh Patel Sudhakar Reddy was killed along with a colleague in an encounter with police here on Sunday.
Top Maoist leader in Andhra Pradesh Patel Sudhakar Reddy, allegedly involved in several high-profile cases including the assassination bid on former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, was killed in an encounter near Warangal district on Sunday.
Killed along with him was Venkataiah, another central committee member of the outlawed CPI(Maoist). An AK-47, a 9mm pistol, an 8mm rifle and three kit bags were recovered from the site.
The operation took place in the dense forest of Lavvala near Tadvai, 250km from Hyderabad. Patel Sudhakar Reddy had been underground for the last 25 years.
A post graduate and gold medallist from Osmania University, Reddy is believed to have joined the movement in 1981. He was in charge of Maoist activities in Karnataka and responsible for the outfit’s military commission, being an expert in explosives, particularly weaponry like directional mines, claymore mines and guerrilla warfare. He had a reward of Rs12 lakh on his head.
Reddy is the prime accused in at least four key killings in Andhra Pradesh and the attempt on Chandrababu Naidu at Alipiri near Tirumala in 2003. Apart from that he was involved in planning the murders of IPS officers Vyas and Umesh Chandra and the state’s former home minister, A Madhava Reddy, by planting a mine under a flyover near Hyderabad.
According to Warangal SP Sajjanar, a police party raided the spot on information that Maoists were holding a meeting there. After an exchange of fire the bodies of Reddy and Venkataiah were found.
However, rights groups have dismissed the encounter theory.
According to them, Reddy was captured sometime back and kept in captivity all these days, as the police waited for the election process to get over. Also, there were no casualties on the police side, which further convinced family members and Maoist sympathisers to allege foul play.
Reddy has a wife and a son, who is pursuing his engineering. His wife Vanaja was with the movement for over 15 years. She now lives in Hyderabad with her son. “I know how it works. This is a killing and not an encounter. The location and the material available there clearly show that the two central committee members were taken alive there and shot dead,” she alleged.
Sunday’s encounter will have a major impact on the Maoists, already reeling under pressure due to the force the state government has been using to keep them away.
Though there is increased Maoist activity in Chhattisgarh and Orissa, they have a hit a low in Andhra Pradesh.
SP Sajjanar said the police had prior information that the Maoists were trying to revive the movement in the north Telangana region, their former stronghold.
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