A senior Maoist leader was killed by fighting with Indian security forces in the central state of Chhattisgarh.
Nambala Keshava Rao, who is also known under several alias, including Basavaraju, was one of the 27 rebels killed on Wednesday, said Indian Minister Amit Shah. A police officer would also have died in the fighting.
According to Shah, it is the first time in three decades that a Maoist in Rao’s seniority was killed by government forces.
Certain parts of Chhattisgarh have experienced a long -standing insurrection of the rebels, who say they have been neglected by governments for decades. The Indian government promised to end its insurrection at the end of March 2026.
Rao, an engineer in training, was the secretary general of the prohibited group of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). He appeared on the most sought -after list of the National Agency for Investigation (NIA) – the India terrorism body.
Vivekanand Sinha, a senior police official in Chhattisgarh, said the shooting in which Rao and the others died, broke out in the Narayanpur district following an intelligence notice that the senior Maoist leaders were in the region.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on X that he was “proud of our forces for this remarkable success”.
The Communist Party of India, meanwhile, condemned the murders and called for an independent investigation.
Last month, the Indian government launched a massive military operation – known as Black Forest – targeting the group.
Shah said on Wednesday that 54 rebels had been arrested so far, and 84 had gone to the states of Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Maharashtra, as a result.
The operation was launched after the Maoists said they were ready for interviews with the government if he stopped his offensive and withdrew his troops. Chhattisgarh officials said all dialogue should be unconditional.
Maoists are inspired by the Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong. Their insurgency began in the state of Western Bengal in the late 1960s and has since spread to more than a third of the 600 districts in India.
The rebels control large areas of several states in a “red corridor” extending from the northeast in the center of India.
The main military and police offensives in recent years have pushed the rebels to their forest bastions and the levels of violence have fallen.
But the clashes between the security forces and the rebels are always common, killing dozens of people each year.
A repression of the security forces killed around 287 rebels last year – the vast majority in Chhattisgarh – according to government data. More than 10,000 people have been died since the 1960s.
